Laser treatment that destroys small blood vessels relieves the facial skin sensitivity that often accompanies rosacea, doctors in Sweden report.

Dr. Solbritt Lonne-Rahm, at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, and colleagues enrolled 32 patients in their study, all of whom had a positive reaction to a lactic acid test. In this “stinger” test, a weak lactic acid solution is applied to skin of the cheek and patients describe the intensity of skin sensations.

Skin biopsy specimens were taken from areas that reacted to the stinger test before the participants underwent laser treatment and three months after.

Twenty-four of the participants became “stinger-negative” after laser treatment, and seven had a reduction in skin symptoms, the team reports in the Archives of Dermatology.

The density of nerve fibers decreased significantly in the treated areas.

This findings supports the possibility of “a contributing neurogenic component to the rosacea/stinging condition,” Lonne-Rahm’s group speculates.

They conclude that laser therapy “may be used as an effective treatment of the sensitive skin in rosacea”

SOURCE: Archives of Dermatology, November 2004.