Effectiveness of CO2 laser with subcision in patients with acne scars.

Background: Post-acne facial scarring has always been a challenge to treat. It requires multiple therapeutic modalities as single modality is not hundred percent effective. Therefore, we have combined CO2 laser resurfacing with subcision in patients with acne scars for better results.

Objective: The aim is to study the effectiveness and side effects of CO2 laser with subcision in patients with atrophic acne scars.

Methods: Fifty patients were selected for the study. Baseline grading was done with Goodman and Baron grading system. Twenty-five patients were randomly selected for subcision followed by CO2 laser and the remaining patients were selected for CO2 laser alone. The treatment was done for four sessions at 4-week interval. Clinical photographs were obtained for evaluation.

Results: CO2 laser with subcision showed excellent response in grade-2 and -3 acne scars. Statistically there is a significant difference between CO2 laser following subcision and CO2 laser alone at 5% level (p < 0.05). Both procedures were well tolerated with minimal side effects.

Conclusions: The highly versatile CO2 laser is useful for treating acne scars. Subcision prior to the CO2 laser procedure showed better improvement when compared to CO2 laser alone. Thus, in acne scars, multiple therapeutic modalities achieve better results.