ProFractional®

ProFractional is a resurfacing laser handpiece that uses an erbium:YAG laser at a wavelength of 2940 nanometers to remove skin in a fine, dotted pattern rather than across the whole treated area, which is what makes it 'fractional.' Leaving the tissue between the treatment spots untouched allows the skin to heal faster than older, fully ablative resurfacing lasers that treated the entire surface at once. The depth of treatment can be adjusted by the provider across a wide range, which Sciton says lets the same handpiece be used for anything from light resurfacing to deeper scar work. It is used for concerns such as fine lines and deeper wrinkles, acne scars and other scar revision, and pigmented spots such as sunspots, freckles and actinic keratosis, across skin types, and it runs on Sciton's JOULE platform. Sciton entered the erbium resurfacing category with its first tunable erbium device, Contour TRL, in 2007; ProFractional is the fractional, spot-pattern version of that erbium technology, though this research could not confirm the exact year ProFractional itself was introduced or its specific FDA 510(k) clearance number.