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Lynne Lamberg

JAMA. 2002;287:1788-1792.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

New Orleans—Advances in light technology already benefit people with hirsutism, pigmented lesions, unwanted tattoos, and other dermatologic conditions. Light technology also holds promise for novel drug design and more precise dermatologic diagnoses. It may even aid the criminal justice system by improving fingerprint identification, according to R. Rox Anderson, MD, associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School.

Anderson explored present and potential applications of what he calls "optical dermatology" in his Marion B. Sulzberger Memorial Award Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology held here in February.

A key application of lasers in dermatology today involves selective photothermolysis, said Anderson, who, with colleague John Parrish, MD, devised this term two decades ago. It describes laser use, ie, the application of pulses of optical radiation, to produce selective damage to pigmented structures, cells, and organelles. Selective photothermolysis, Anderson said, "is like having a . . . [Full Text of this Article]