Macrene Alexiades-Armenakas Department of Dermatology, Yale University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA 21.1 Introduction 400 21.2 Acne Treatment with PDT 400 21.2.1 Background 400 21.2.2 Light Treatment Alone 400 21.2.3 Systemic ALA with Light 401 21.2.4 Topical ALA and Red Wavelengths 401 21.2.5 Topical ALA and Blue Light 402 21.2.6 Topical ALA and […]

The use of lasers for hair removal carries a certain level of potential risk related to dermal side effects, and has certain limitations for treating darker skin or lighter hair. These risks and limitations get further amplified when treatments need to administered to one’s face. The risk of causing a permanent or long-lasting dermal effect, […]

Among chemical treatments for controlling facial hair growth, Vaniqa remains the only FDA-approved product for this indication, and among the physical/photothermal methods, laser or light-based treatment is the only modality clinically proven for hair reduction. However, both these methods have certain limitations, the critical one being the level of hair reduction effectiveness. Though eflornithine is […]

Based on the principle of selective photothermolysis first described by Anderson and Par­rish [63], several laser and light-based systems have been developed to affect hair growth. Under this principle, advantage is taken of the high concentration melanin pigment at the base of the anagen hair follicle and its absence in the surrounding dermal tissue that […]

Though eflornithine is an effective and specific inhibitor of ODC, its efficacy is some­what limited and variable, probably because of its low skin penetration, a poor target tissue accumulation, and the rapid turnover rate of ODC enzyme. The result is a wide range of efficacy from nearly no effect in some subjects to as much […]

Dermal safety of 13.9 % eflornithine cream Vaniqa was assessed in women in four open – label, vehicle-control studies performed by Hickman et al. [61]. The studies included con­tact sensitization study (230 subjects), a cumulative irritation test (30 subjects), a phototoxicity assessment (25 subjects), and a photocontact allergy study (30 subjects). The data showed that […]

Vaniqa is the first and only product that has been clinically demonstrated to be safe and effective for hair-growth reduction. Its Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-approved indi­cated use is for the reduction of unwanted facial hair in women. Unlike the oral hormonal treatments, which can only effect androgen-dependent hair growth, Vaniqa works on all growing […]

Several factors contributed to the successful development of an eflornithine preparation VaniqaTM (Rx product) that received the US regulatory approval in July 2000. These included: 1. a clearly defined mechanism of action of eflornithine for reduction of hair growth; 2. a favorable systemic and dermal safety profile in doses that can illicit a pharma­cological response; […]

In line with the observations that highly proliferative cells tend to have a high polyamine requirement to support growth, it was found that hair follicle, which is one of the most proliferative organ in the body, expresses a high level of ODC activity [44]. Hair growth in humans is a cyclic process with periods of […]