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The development of the pulsed dye laser in the mid-'80s revolutionized the treatment of cutaneous vascular lesions, including port-wine stains. While effective, the pulsed dye laser has shortcomings, including that multiple treatments are needed to lighten port-wine stains and that purpura, lasting from 5 to 14 days, always develops. The intense pulsed light source (PhotoDerm) was developed to optimize the treatment of vascular lesions without some of these limitations. The PhotoDerm flashlamp-pumped broad-band light source emits light in the range of 515 to 1,200 nm at pulse durations from 1 to 10 msec.
This Dutch study used the PhotoDerm to treat 120 patients with a variety of vascular skin lesions. Forty patients had leg veins of the thig…