FDA approves new treatment for varicose veins

Last Wednesday, March 31st, the FDA announced that a new treatment for varicose veins has been approved. The generic name, polidocanol (marketed in the US as Asera) works by causing damage to the cell lining of the veins, which makes them close up and eventually disappear, replaced by other types of tissue. Asclera is designed and approved for veins smaller in diameter than 1 mm in diameter as well as reticular veins that are between 1 and 3 mm in diameter. (For Americans that's 1/24th to 1/8th of an inch).

There are three types of vein problems: varicose, spider and reticular. Spider veins are extremely small—you often get them around the ankles and sometimes on the upper thighs, as well as on the face. They can ache, burn and swell and spider veins on the legs can cause night cramps. Varicose veins are the most noticeable and are often located on the calves. Reticular veins are generally very mild and cause little discomfort. In our practice, sclerosing agents, such as the new Asclera, have been a treatment of choice along with laser treatments.

To your health and beauty,

Dr. Joe Danyo

All About Fat Transfer

Imagine transferring your own extra fat into places that you’d like a little more roundness—perhaps your buttocks, the backs of the hands, to fill and plump facial wrinkles, into the breasts instead of implants. This state-of-the-art technology isn’t a dream. It’s already here. Here being all over the world and here in the Delaware Valley/Philly area.

Fat transfer is called by several different names: fat transplantation, fat injecting and microlipoinjection to name only a few. What’s really funny about fat transfer is that it’s actually pretty old. It was created in 1893 by Franz Neuber, a German doctor whose patient had a pit in her cheek. He removed fat from her upper arm and injected it into her cheek and voila! She had no more pit in her face. In 1895, Dr. Karl Czerny used fat from a patient’s flank area to create larger breasts. So you see, this isn’t altogether a brand new technology.

One of the concerns many have about fat transfer is that, even though your body will never reject it, your body might absorb it! In order to avoid this, the fat has to be processed carefully during the liposuction to retain some of the factors and stem cells within the fact. Thankfully, treatments like SmartLipo allow us to extract fat with the SmartLipo system and then inject it into our patients. The factors help the fat to “take” without all of it being absorbed.