Changing lives with light – Helping children with disfiguring birthmarks

It’s hard to imagine but pulses of light can have a huge impact on the quality of life.  Since the development of laser technologies, where light is used to heat a specific tissue and selectively destroy it, light has been used to treat millions children affected by disfiguring birthmarks such as congenital nevi (abnormal collection of pigmented cells) and port-wine stains (abnormal collection of blood vessels).  The reason that light is so effective is that it can destroy only the cells or tissues that are targeted, while leaving the other healthy cells and tissues alone. These treatments are safe, effective and, in the correct hands,  have no permanent side effects. Before selective laser treatments, surgery or radiation therapy were used, in Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia, children were still subjected to an outdated and dangerous treatment – radioactive phosphorus.  A radioactive paste is applied to hemangiomas, which are…