1. Facial aging is a progressive, multifactor-induced and multidimensional process which is naturally irreversible. The prominent clinical features of skin aging include loss of volume, pigmentation irregularity, low light reflectance, static and dynamic wrinkles, etc.
2. The development of superpulsed CO2 and Erbium: YAG 2940 nm resurfacing lasers was considered as the "gold standard" for the treatment of facial aging [8,9]. However, many drawbacks including intraoperative pain, post procedural erythema, edema, high risk of changes of pigmentation and long downtime have drawn concerns to patients and practitioners. Therefore, the facial rejuvenation therapies based on combined modalities to target various factors simutaneously have raised more and more interests.
3. The Fotona 4D laser platform incorporates the long pulsed 1064 nm and 2940 nm lasers, which provides versatile modalities to target various skin aging problems simultaneously. The 1064 nm laser can penetrate deep into the skin to explode pigment particles, destroy blood vessels and heat the dermal collagen by targeting melanin and haemoglobin. The 2940 nm Er:YAG laser in Fotona 4D system integrates a non-ablative Smooth® mode and cold peel SupErficial™ mode. the half-face treated by a 2940 nm laser alone showed a significant improvement on indexes of skin wrinkles, texture, pores and elasticity as compared to the baseline.