Assessment of skin improvement treatment efficacy using the photograding of mechanicaly-accentuated macrorelief of thigh skin

摘要

The assessment of the efficacy of skin improvement treatments could be obtained by several different instrumental tests. In parallel to these techniques, visual evaluation more closely related to the consumer's considerations would be of value for the assessment of slimming treatments efficacy. A method of macrorelief scoring of skin has been developed as an alternative to usual clinical assessment. It consisted of acquiring macroscopic views of the most representative areas of women's cellulite. Photographs were taken after application of gripping system around the thigh, used to increase the orange peel look of the skin over a restricted area (200 cm~2) and then classified by observers according to reference groups of cellulite intensity. This publication presents the validation of this photograding method and the results of the first 2-month double-blind placebo-controlled clinical study performed on 30 subjects with this technique associated with: (i) B mode ultrasound imaging in order to correlate scorings with instrumental measurements of thigh adipose tissue thickness variations and (ii) self-evaluation questionnaire aiming at evaluating the overall appraisal and attitude towards the two products. The results clearly shed that the effects of 'slimming products' on the skin's macrorelief improvement could be evaluated objectively using this photograding technique. Moreover, the method described here allows delayed scoring of cellulite intensity from a restricted examination area independent of whole-subject appearance, thus decreasing subjectivity.