Salon Talk

One of the world’s foremost Dermal Needling Specialists, Dr Lance Setterfield M.D., will be in New Zealand and Australia during February for a series of educational seminars.  This will be an opportunity for New Zealand therapists who are considering, or are already practicing the Dermal Needling (or rolling) modality, to learn more about this exceptional treatment option from an international expert on the subject.

Dr Setterfield’s visit is to not only educate, but to promote best practice procedures and techniques to the industry.  “With the plethora of needling devices flooding the market, so too is a good deal of marketing-based misinformation that is fostering less than optimal practices and results,” said Association Education Officer Margaret Walsh. “This is a similar situation that occurred during the popularization of IPL treatments.  We learned to our detriment that we can quickly lose credibility in the eyes of the public and authorities if we do not follow best practice procedures.”

Over the past four years, Dermal Needling (or rolling) has quickly become one of the most popular skin rejuvenation modalities of choice for many aware skin care practitioners around the world, and as a leading authority on the subject, Dr Setterfield travels the globe (as far away as Russia) to provide training for organizations and individuals seeking the best instruction in order to deliver optimum results.

Dr Setterfield’s own research (and that of other international experts) shows that the key to why needling is such an effective treatment modality is the healing response that the process stimulates.  “Dermal Needling is the only rejuvenation treatment that maximizes penetration of essential cell nutrients and maximizes release of growth factors associated with the positive aspects of wound healing simultaneously,” says Dr Setterfield.  “One of this modality’s major advantages is that it eliminates the risk of melanocyte heat injury and actually optimizes cell function, making it the ideal treatment for all skin types.”

Dr Setterfield’s journey to understanding this modality began in 2003, when he embraced the opportunity to combine the broad base of knowledge that his years of general practice had provided with the exciting new developments in

Anti-Aging Medicine. Over the ensuing years of using many types of rejuvenation modalities, he quickly came to the conclusion that, despite the initial positive results with these honored and popular modalities, in many cases there was something missing from the long-term results he expected.  In 2005, he decided to undertake his own clinical trials that included the use of the then expensive (US$850) dermal rollers. In the absence of financial pressure to use a specific laser or other thermal modality, he found that dermal rolling, in conjunction with selective topical applications, delivered exceptional results in a majority of his patients.

“I was prompted to explore the science behind the obvious success in my patients and decided to conduct detailed research.  Like most I initially believed that in order to stimulate collagen, the target in rejuvenation was the “fibroblast”.  However, all the evidence I discovered pointed to the “keratinocyte” as being one of the keys to success,” said Dr Setterfield.

During his research, of which much is presented in his 2010 book, “The Concise Guide To Dermal Needling,” he focused his attentions on the role keratinocytes play in scarless wound-healing, and in general, the types of growth factors in play during the wound-healing process.  “Combining my findings with results in some of my patients that were beyond expectation and that did not involve any injury to the depth of fibroblasts, I concluded that the best explanation is that needling not only spares the epidermis, but strengthens it.  Repeated injury of healthy keratinocytes leads to release of anti-fibrotic growth factors and optimizes cell-to-cell communication between keratinocytes, melanocytes, and fibroblasts. When these signals are boosted, fibroblasts differentiate to form normal collagen and greater amounts of hyaluronic acid, as seen in the ideal situation of embryo wound healing.”

Years later, we now understand why Dermal Needling has the ability to open up a whole new world to the professional beauty industry, and the possibility of healthy, vibrant skin is attainable for the many, instead of the few.

Men talk to our skin therapists with regard to Men’s Facials and Microdermabrasion treatments.