RF nonablative cutaneous thermal therapy

James William Tunnell; Roger A. Stern; Karl A. Pope

doi:10.1117/12.432073

17 June 2002 RF nonablative cutaneous thermal therapy

James William Tunnell, Roger A. Stern, Karl A. Pope

Proceedings Volume 4609, Lasers in Surgery: Advanced Characterization, Therapeutics, and Systems XII; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.432073
Event: International Symposium on Biomedical Optics, 2002, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

We investigate a novel design of a cryogen-cooled capacitive RF treatment tip (Thermage) designed to volumetrically heat skin while preserving the epidermis. Cryogen R-134a (1,1,1,2-tretrafluoroethane), an environmentally compatible, non-toxic, FDA-approved freon substitute, is sprayed on the back of the treatment tip to induce conductive cooling to the skin surface. The treatment tip is driven by an RF generator at 6 MHz with a typical dosage of 95 J delivered over 2 sec. The purpose of this study was to predict the temperature profiles within human skin due to the RF heating and cryogen cooling through the use of a three-dimensional mathematical model of the temperature distribution within human skin. RF cunent density was determined by measuring the potential field in skin-like saline solution with a custom 3D field mapping system. The three-dimensional bioheat equation was solved using the central finite-difference approximation. Results of this study show that this electrode design induces volumetric heating deep within the skin while still protecting the superficial skin layers from thermal injury. This combination of RF heating and surface cooling may prove beneficial for non-ablative cutaneous thermal therapies.

Citation Download Citation

James William Tunnell, Roger A. Stern, and Karl A. Pope "RF nonablative cutaneous thermal therapy", Proc. SPIE 4609, Lasers in Surgery: Advanced Characterization, Therapeutics, and Systems XII, (17 June 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.432073

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