Facial skin rejuvenation: ablative laser resurfacing, chemical peels, or photodynamic therapy? Facts and controversies.

Patients and cosmetic surgeons continue to develop innovative devices and techniques in search of the elusive fountain of youth. Our efforts in the past decade can be distilled to three primary approaches: refinement of existing technologies (ablative lasers); refinement of tried-and-true techniques (chemical peeling); and innovative use of new technologies (photorejuvenation). In this contribution, the authors discuss how these three approaches are used to achieve facial skin rejuvenation. Specifically, the authors compare and contrast the clinical benefits and disadvantages of the ablative fractionated and unfractionated carbon dioxide resurfacing lasers, medium-depth and deep chemical peeling, and the combination of photodynamic therapy with intense-pulsed light.

Identification of genes induced by oxidized phospholipids in human aortic endothelial cells.

Oxidized-L-alpha-1-Palmitoyl-2-Arachidonoyl-sn-glycero-3-Phosphorylcholine (Ox-PAPC), a component of mildly oxidized/minimally modified low-density lipoprotein (MM-LDL), accounts for many of the biological activities of MM-LDL. Having hypothesized that Ox-PAPC initiates gene expression changes in endothelial cells that result in enhanced endothelial/monocyte interactions and the subsequent development of atherosclerotic lesions, we used the suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) procedure to compare mRNA isolated from PAPC-treated human aortic endothelial cells (HAEC) with mRNA isolated from Ox-PAPC-treated cells. Genes induced by Ox-PAPC but not by PAPC in HAEC included genes involved in signal transduction, extracellular matrix, growth factors, chemokines and several genes with unknown functions. The observed pattern of gene induction suggests that Ox-PAPC may play multiple roles in angiogenesis, atherosclerosis, and inflammation and wound healing.