Lasers For Port Wine Stain Birthmarks

We understand how difficult it can be to have a port wine stain (vascular birthmark), especially when it’s on the face.  Laser treatments can offer life-changing results, and we are honored to help patients like you through the removal process. At Celibre, our treatment of choice for port wine stain removal is the pulsed dye laser.

Each of these birthmarks has different qualities—no two are exactly the same, so not everyone responds the same to treatment. Port wine stains are a malformation of the blood vessels at the surface of the skin that can occur anywhere on the body.  The size, depth and number of blood vessels in the birthmark impact the response to treatment and the number of treatments necessary to see improvement. Research suggests that the location of the birthmark can dictate how quickly and successfully it responds to laser treatment.

Not all port wine birthmarks will disappear completely, so we often tell our patients that treatment success should be defined in some cases by improvement in the appearance of their birthmark rather than total removal.  When discussing this limitation up front, we also discuss why it’s impossible to tell beforehand what degree of improvement we’ll see. The only thing that we can know is that your port wine stain will improve.

The pictures above were taken of a patient who received six pulsed dye laser treatments for her port wine stain. A series of 8 to 12 was recommended at consultation, and although she didn’t finish the treatment program, as you can see, she had about 75% improvement in the appearance of her facial port wine stain.