Efficacy, tolerance and acceptability of pulsed dye laser on facial and neckline telangiectasias in systemic scleroderma: a prospective open-label monocentric study in 21 patients

ABSTRACT

Facial and neckline telangiectasias have an underestimated yet important impact on quality of life of patients with systemic scleroderma (SSc). This monocentric, prospective, open-label, intra-patient comparative study was conducted in 21 consecutive patients with SSc. Patients underwent 4 sessions of PDL 8 weeks apart. A final quadruple assessment was performed by several raters 2 months after the last session, based on the following criteria: change in telangiectasia number; subjective improvement score (LINKERT scale); impact on the quality of life (QoL; SKINDEX score); visual analog pain scale; adverse effects (AEs), including treatment discontinuation for PDL-induced purpura and patient satisfaction. The mean telangiectasia number decreased by 5 (32%) at the end of the protocol. Eighteen patients (85.7%) reported an improvement or a strong improvement, versus 73.81% for the expert committee. Immediate session pain (mean = 3.4/10) was slightly less than overall pain (mean = 4.6/10). Ten patients (47%) experienced at least one AE (oozing/crusts, edema, epidermal blistering), including PDL-induced purpura in 3 patients (14%). AEs were mostly transient (<1 week) and mild (CTCAE grade 1). All QoL parameters improved after treatment, and 85% of patients were satisfied.

KEYWORDS:

• Systemic scleroderma
• facial and neckline telangiectasias
• vascular laser
• pulsed dye laser
• psychosocial assessment

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Jean-Jacques Parienti, head of the clinical research unit at Caen University Hospital and professor of medicine in public health, for his help in editing the manuscript.

The patients in this manuscript have given written informed consent to publication of their case details.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14764172.2024.2313472

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.