Comparison of regional efficacy and complications in the treatment of aberrant Mongolian spots with the Q-switched ruby laser.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Aberrant Mongolian spots (AMS) distal from the lumbosacral region are said to be more apt to persist than the typical sacral AMS, so the Q-switched ruby laser (QSRL) has been the treatment of choice for AMS. However, so far as we could determine, there is no statistical analysis of the treatment of AMS. This paper shows statistical comparisons of the efficacy and complications in the treatment of AMS with QSRL.

METHODS: Fifty-three patients (16 males and 37 females) with 57 AMS regions were treated with the QSRL from March 1999 to April 2007, and we divided the diseased areas into exposed regions that could not be concealed by clothing and non-exposed regions that could be concealed by clothing, and performed a statistical analysis.

RESULTS: The results indicated that QSRL treatment of AMS in the exposed regions showed significantly improved coloration and caused less pigmentation when compared with the non-exposed regions.

CONCLUSION: We concluded that QSRL treatment of AMS in the exposed regions is more effective than that of AMS in the non-exposed regions.