What kinds of acne scars are better suited for punch excision?

Hi,

Generally, very deep acne scars that are less than the diameter of the punch (usually 3mm in diameter) are candidates for punch excision as these scars respond very poorly to other modalities of acne scar treatment such as subcision and fractional lasers. Such very deep acne scars with a small surface diameter are also known as “ice-pick” scars.

The punch excision converts the deep ice-pick scars to a superficial line scar which subsequent resurfacing procedures will help improve further.

Hope this helps!

Hi,

Ice pick scars and smaller box scars are suitable for punch excisions.

The scar unit is removed by the punch and stitched up, thereby replacing these scars with a linear/straight scar instead.

Subsequent skin resurfacing treatments (such as the CO2 laser) can then be utilised to smoothen this linear scar to improve its appearance.

Hope this helps.

All the best!