It is the most popular aesthetic medicine treatment of the moment. Very fashionable in the USA, also thanks to Kim Kardashian who revealed on Instagram that she had tried the machine, Fractional needle radio frequency is now very popular in Italy too, above all thanks to word of mouth, chat, social media and promises to make you “10 years younger”. A trend, however, forcefully rejected by many plastic surgeons and aesthetic doctors who warn: “Be wary of machines that promise to rejuvenate the face in two sessions! It is an impossible result. In particular, this technique has no proven long-term effectiveness, it can cause excessive emptying due to damage to the subcutaneous adipose tissue, e risks compromising nerve fibers and superficial muscle groups“, warns Paolo Mezzana, specialist and PhD in Plastic Surgery in Rome, recalling that this machine “is now being monitored by the American FDA which is evaluating its side effects”.
The technique infuses fractional thermal energy into the dermis which warms the tissues in depth, causing a thermal shock which – according to the promises – stimulates the production of collagen: “Be careful though – explains the surgeon to Adnkronos Salute – it is coagulative, cicatricial collagen , because if you go under the skin, up to 4-5 millimeters, you increase the temperature beyond 5-10 degrees, you create a burn and therefore stimulate reparative collagen, not good collagen. We are therefore talking about coagulative medicine and not regenerative medicine which is something else”, underlines Mezzana.
“Unfortunately we are faced with yet another trend, which many Italians are following, needlessly shelling out 900-1,000 euros per session, which is also very painful. Many clients – she reports – tell us ‘my friend did it yesterday and she’s better’. Unfortunately it is only a temporary swelling, and in 2 months it will be as if nothing had been done, provided it has no side effects, such as excessive emptying, and we know well how the loss of volumes over the years is the leading cause of facial aging”.
Mezzana, therefore, reiterates how “in regenerative medicine you cannot rush by expecting immediate results, because the result is progressive or respects the tissue and waits for the cellular response. We must rely on precise protocols made by expert doctors and not on machinery – he warns the surgeon – why rejuvenation is the combination of different treatments that can slow down skin aging, but certainly not take the skin back 10 years. Unfortunately – he reflects – marketing is a wonderful tool, but in medicine it is truly dangerous.”
“Medicine is not a miracle – reiterates the specialist – but a process. In the case of a woman’s face, the degree of filling to be done must first be evaluated based on the lost volume: let’s keep in mind that at 55 years of age it has been lost between 15 and 25% of the facial volume you had when you were young, because fat decreases and bones become thinner. So you must first restore the volumes with hyaluronic acid or autologous fat, then treat the ‘surface’, that is, the appearance of the epidermis, blemishes, etc., with calibrated peelings or delicate fractional lasers that renew the surface layer. Finally, in the most severe cases, you can opt for plastic surgery which intervenes on the suspension of the muscles: when you do a facelift, in fact – Mezzana details – you don’t tighten the skin, but you suspend the muscle band, which is what which gives a long-lasting effect. But even in this case, just doing a facelift would mean pulling away old skin, which must first be treated. Therefore a medicine made up of several steps, some regenerative, others surgical, always respecting the harmony of the face. You can’t think that a machine will solve everything in two sessions.”
Regarding the attention to which the machine is currently subjected in the USA, the plastic surgeon reports that, “after the authorization given by the Food and Drug Administration, the manufacturing company never sent reports on adverse events for 2 years. When he finally sent them, they were so discordant about the number of lawsuits – including that of a well-known American TV presenter who suffered severe facial depletion and made a huge complaint, legal and media – that the FDA has placed the machine under scrutiny to reassess whether the risks outweigh the benefits. In that case, you will have to withdraw your authorization.”
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