RNS: Port Wine Stains, September 2009
TIME: 2:33
URL: http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=1310
U-M Health Minute: Today’s top health issues and medical research
Port wine stains an easy fix
Laser therapy can greatly reduce discomfort, embarrassment of port wine stains
Suggested lead: Three of every 1,000 children born has a port wine stain, which is made up of numerous dilated blood vessels in a localized part of the skin. They can occur anywhere on the body, but most patients who seek laser treatment have port wine stains on the face or neck. Here is Andi McDonnell with more.
After 56 years of discomfort, embarrassment, and even pain, Maureen Dillon was finally able to go out in public with only one layer of makeup on. She felt beautiful for the first time since adolescence. She jumped in a pool without worrying about her makeup washing off and revealing a strawberry-colored cheek and nose.
Dillon had lived with port wine stains since birth, and they became darker and brought more distress as the years went on.
“As a young child, young meaning probably up to about 4th or 5th grade, I really didn’t notice it. My parents called it a beauty mark. So every time someone would be starring at me I would think ‘oh they must think I’m beautiful.’ So then though, as you get into those middle school years, oh my, that changed. I’d begun to really realize why someone’s starring at me.”
After dealing with blood vessel clusters and papules, swelling and infections, Dillon’s family doctor sent her to see Dr. Jeffrey Orringer, (M.D.), director of the Cosmetic Dermatology and Laser Center at the University of Michigan Health System. Orringer used lasers that, over eight treatments, removed Dillon’s port wine stains.
“Over the course of a lifetime, the natural history of a port wine stain is such that it gradually darkens and may thicken becoming more and more apparent as the child becomes an adult. Perhaps even more importantly, the port wine stain can develop within it numerous small vascular papules or bumps that can be very fragile. These can bleed, become infected and cause lots of problems for patients so we try to treat the port wine stains earlier in the course of their natural life-cycle.”
Even though he cannot explain why Dillon or anyone else gets the vascular birthmark, he has good odds of making them better with the laser therapy: 75 percent to 80 percent of patients have their port wine stain lightened by at least 50 percent, and the mark disappears completely in 15 percent to 20 percent of patients.
“In the Cosmetic Dermatology and Laser Center here at the University of Michigan we do a great deal of research regarding laser therapy looking at the molecular mechanisms that underlie the clinical benefits that we all see with laser treatments. We believe that by better understanding how the laser energy impacts the skin on a molecular level we’re more likely to be able to develop optimal treatment parameters that will benefit our patients down the line.”
Andi McDonnell, U-M Health System News
Click here to listen to more recent radio releases Additional RNS reports are available for your use on a wide variety of topics including: cancer, children's health, depression, women's health and more!
