The term "pigmented lesions" can refer to many different skin conditions. In general, these conditions are commonly known as freckles, age spots, liver spots, sun spots, moles, birthmarks, etc. To understand how laser treatments can be used to treat these conditions, it is important to have a basic understanding of how class IV medical lasers work.

The concept is quite simple - each type of laser is attracted to a specific target area in the skin. The target for the laser is determined by the wavelength of the laser being used. So for these type of pigmented lesions, the lasers are attracted to the melanin (pigment) in the skin.  When the thermal energy of the laser treatments interacts with the pigmented lesion, it breaks apart the cells that contain the pigment (melanocytes). Although the treatment is usually short, the process of breaking up and fading the pigment continues for several weeks even after the treatment is over.  With repeated laser treatments, the cells containing the pigment in the sun spots, tattoos or birthmarks can be removed and replaced with cells that do not contain the pigment.  This is how we can eliminate these unwanted brown spots for good with laser treatments.