The annual Australiasian College of Cosmetic Surgery (ACCS) conference is to be held from May 6 to 9 in Sydney.

It is a great conference that most of the staff at The Victorian Cosmetic Institute will be attending.

Dr. Gavin Chan from The Victorian Cosmetic Institute will be presenting a talk on “Combining multiple wavelengths and mechanisms for the greatest results.

The main categories that will be discussed at the conference are

• Dermal Fillers / Btx
• Laser and Light Technology
• Face and Breast Surgery
• Liposuction
• Highlight: Liposuction interactive plenary session where panellists will be given cases to describe how they would have proceeded to advise patients and respond to questions from the audience on the manner they would handle the procedure

The high profile international speakers include:

• Dr Tony Mangubat (USA) – specialist in cosmetic surgery and hair restoration
• Dr Antonio Campo (Spain) – world renowned dermatologist presenting on his work with Pearl and skin rejuvenation
• Dr. Stephen Mulholland , M.D – Internationally recognized cosmetic plastic surgeon and lecturer, and owner of SpaMedica
• Dr Michael A. Kane (USA) – board-certified plastic surgeon from New York City and author of the Btx book.

The majority of those attending will be cosmetic physicians, cosmetic nurses , dermatologists, and plastic surgeons.

With most of Australia’s cosmetic world attending, if you are in need of urgent cosmetic treatment during this time you might be in dire straits!

However, we do have unlucky doctor and nurse holding the fort , so if you do need some attention we will be around.

We will be reporting on any new innovations, or techniques on our return.

When I heard of the prospect of a drug that could make you tanned and slim without the need for sunlight or dieting, I thought it sounded too good to be true, and maybe I should have trusted my instincts…

Melanotan II was the name of this drug we trialled on 3 of our staff with varying results.

Quoting from melanotan.org: Melanotan and Melanotan II are both synthetic versions of melanocyte stimulating hormone that were created, synthesized and developed at The University of Arizona and the Arizona Cancer Center. Melanotan is a linear, full length peptide (containing all 13 amino acids). Melanotan II is a shortened, circular version of the same peptide. Both Melanotan and Melanotan II have sunless tanning capabilities but because Melanotan II had libido enhancement and spontaneous erections as side effects, To be particularly clear regarding Melanotan (due to previous incorrect news reports) it should be noted that it does not cause sexual arousal nor have erectile effects. These aspects are only found in the drugs Melanotan II and bremelanotide.

So what happened in the end ?

• 3 out of the 3 people in our trial felt severe nausea after their first injection of the recommended dosage (so obviously the increase in sex drive wasn’t apparent)
• All felt irritated and had difficulty sleeping
• 2 out of 3 people stopped after the 1st injection
• 1 out of the 3 people after using the drug experienced some mild sunburn on one of her arms after a brief exposure to sun in her car.
• 1 out of 3 people continued the injection at 1/2 the recommended dosage (to avoid nausea) for 2 weeks

The person who continued Melanotan II ended up getting a mild tan, more so on the face than on the other areas of the body, but also noticed a significant increase in the darkening of moles / naevi on her face, and ceased the treatment as a result.

So in conclusion, Melanotan II wasn’t all it scrubbed up to be, although it did have the desired effect of tanning the skin without sunlight – albeit with many side effects.

On to our second staff trial …

Allergan have recently released a product called Latisse (not yet available in Australia) that is to be used to grow eyelashes. It is essentially an exisiting product of Allergan’s called Lumigan that has been repackaged and FDA approved. Lumigan has the same active ingredient as Latisse (bimatoprost 0.03%), but its intended use is for glaucoma – a condition that causes increased pressure in the eyes. One of the known side effects of Lumigan was that it grew your eyelashes (a side effect that has been exploited by Allergan) and this was our intended use of the drug.

We used Lumigan rather than Latisse, as it has the same active ingredients as Latisse, was available in Australia, and also is significantly cheaper than the proprosed price for Latisse.

We have trialled it on several of our female staff, and after 4 weeks have obtained some preliminary results as shown in these pictures.

Filler type V is now available at The Victorian Cosmetic Institute!
(Due to TGA restrictions, the full name of filler type V cannot be published.)

Filler type V is designed as a large volume filler, most suited to areas such as the cheeks or the chin. It is composed of hyaluronic acid, which is a substance that is naturally found in the skin. The filler is similar to other fillers produced by Allergan, except that this filler is slightly thicker than the other fillers, and thus is intended for deeper placement in the face to augment larger areas, giving superior results here.

The other potential advantage of this filler is that it will last for approximately 12-18 months.

The Medlite and Gemini lasers are two lasers that are commonly used at The Victorian Cosmetic Institute for the treatment of skin. Interestingly, they both emit the same wavelength, namely 1064nanometres and 532nanometres, but perform very different treatments simply because of the duration of each laser pulse.

The Gemini laser is a long – pulse laser, which emits pulses that are in the millisecond range. Although the term ‘long-pulse’ would suggest something much longer than a few milliseconds, this is quite long in the laser world.

The Medlite laser is a q-switched laser. This means that it emits pulses in the nano-second range. One nano-second is one billionth of a second and therefore is one million times shorter than one millisecond. The laser achieves this very short pulse via q-switching, which is achieved by a camera-shutter like mechanism in the laser.

The consequences of these differences in pulse duration are that these lasers are used for very different applications. The Medlite laser with its extremely short pulses tends to be able to provide very high energy short pulses that can shatter the target without heating it much. For example, it can be used to remove tattoo ink from skin by shattering it into smaller particles for the body to remove. The Gemini laser cannot perform this treatment because its relatively longer pulses cause heating and scarring of the skin before the tattoo ink can be broken down.

On the other hand, the Gemini laser is highly suited to the treatment of visible/superficial blood vessels on the face. Its 532nm wavelength is highly attracted to this target, and provides specific heat energy to this target to help to shut down the capillary. The Medlite laser at the same wavelength, although attracted to the target, tends to not provide enough heat energy to shut down the blood vessel due to its short pulse.

For more information on these lasers click on the relevant links below;

For more information on the Gemini laser and its applications, click here

For more information on the Medlite laser and its applications, click here

The skin pigmentation page has been updated with information and new case studies.
For more information on the treatment of problems of skin pigmentation, including; solar lentigos, melasma, post inflammatory hyperpigmentation, and birthmarks, click on this link.