Which aesthetic problems are best treated with laser therapy?

Laser therapy can be used to treat skin problems including warts, acne, liver spots (age spots), wrinkles, and also the precursors of skin cancer. Depending on the type of laser, they can also be used to treat spider veins in the legs. Lasers can usefully be employed where micro-sclerotherapy is not possible, for example if there are tiny dilated vessels (telangiectasia) in the skin on the nose or cheeks, or port-wine stains on the face.

Spider veins on the legs are sometimes so fine that an injection is not always possible. Laser treatment can be tried for these veins, but only very small, delicate spider veins can be treated with laser alone. As laser beams do not penetrate far into the tissues, they do not reach the more deeply lying inflow to spider veins or reticular varicose veins. This inflow has to be shut off as well, otherwise the spider veins will recur. Other techniques, such as micro-sclerotherapy, are more appropriate than lasers for blocking off the inflow and the somewhat deeper lying varicose veins.