In his clinical practice in Germany, Dr Klaus Fritz offers consultations for people of all ages on a variety of types of cosmetic procedures.
Exilis Elite device delivers RF energy for facial rejuvenation.
"The majority of patients coming for skin rejuvenation are between 40 to 65. But we had an 80-year-old and a 30-year-old having the same soft tissue augmentation procedure. So it may not be a matter of age, but the attitude towards how you want to look," said the president of the German Academy of Dermatology, who has seen many advances in non-invasive procedures over the last two decades.
From dermal fillers and botulinum toxin to laser and ultrasound, the non-invasive approaches can knock years off the face by erasing wrinkles, plumping up sunken skin and sharpening the jawline.
In Thailand, a mushrooming of cosmetic dermatology clinics provides access to so-called "lunchtime lifts" and other beauty quick fixes that are even sought out by younger people, who place priority in presenting a good look.
"In their late 20s, people already begin wanting treatments to correct minor concerns and I think they will continue to ask for cosmetic procedures until their senior years," he said.
"The new generation has a different mindset towards aesthetic medicine compared to my generation, whereas two or three generations before us wouldn't care about having wrinkles because they probably would have been dead before hitting 60 or 70."
Dr Klaus Fritz.
The German physician once served as the president of the European Society of Laser Dermatology. Due to the advent of new technologies, the Society's scope has expanded to energy-based therapies such as intense pulsed light (IPL), radiofrequency (RF) and ultrasound.
With light as an energy source, lasers are employed for non-surgical skin rejuvenation, but comes with setbacks from downtime and side effects such as hyperpigmentation from the interference with the skin's pigments called melanin. More friendly to Asian skin, according to Dr Fritz, RF emits an electric current modulated to heat the skin's deeper layers without harming the surface and disturbing the melanin. The thermal energy prompts collagen contraction and the production of new collagen that holds up the skin to restore a smooth surface.
"The last five years has brought a lot of new developments that have replaced laser in certain indications and one of them is RF, which is playing a bigger role in cosmetic dermatology," said Dr Fritz.
"RF was previously used in other fields of medicine, for example, as a caustic treatment and for thermocoagulation in surgery. Its application in cosmetic dermatology has led to an increasing number of devices promising positive effects, particularly for body contouring, skin tightening and facial rejuvenation."
Dr Fritz was in Bangkok recently to attend the launch of Exilis Elite, the latest Focused RF system claimed to deliver precise heating and cooling for layering, referring to how the energy reaches the various depths in the tissue, including the layer of fat cells.
It was designed to provide therapeutic temperatures in the shortest period of time, lending a predictable response while ensuring patient safety and comfort. RF's first commercial application, Thermage was approved in the early 2000s and modified versions followed to make it more comforting to patients. With a single electrode placed on the treatment area, the monopolar RF device started a wave of other machines from bipolar and tripolar to those with up to eight poles of RF energy to heat the skin.
"The more options you have, the more you have to gain experience to find which RF device works. Results will depend on individual responses and how much the skin has aged," concluded Dr Fritz. "Again, you can't do everything with one device and often a combination of cosmetic procedures is required to achieve treatment goals.''
