An objective method to assess the improvements of skin texture roughness after botulinum toxin type a treatment of crow's feet.

[BACKGROUND] Photo-numeric scales could lack precision and objectivity on evaluating the improvements on wrinkles after a treatment with botulinum toxin type A. The authors suggest a new digital evaluation method to analyze its effectiveness.

[OBJECTIVES] This study aims to investigate retrospectively the effect of intramuscular injection of botulinum toxin type A on skin texture in the lateral peri-orbital region with a new objective method.

[METHODS] Skin texture roughness (STR) in the lateral peri-orbital region is evaluated with a multi-directional light beam by light emitting diodes of different wavelengths (Antera 3D ), before and after injections of 12 units of botulinum toxin type A. The wrinkles and lines deeper than 0.5 mm are filtered to measure accurately skin texture.

[RESULTS] We observed an improvement of STR in all cases treated with botulinum toxin type A. A significant decrease of STR was recorded as follows: 17.08% (P < .0001) at 4 weeks and 12.14% at 4 months (P = .001).

[CONCLUSION] Botulinum toxin type A treatment of crow's feet was able to improve STR. The Antera device and software are a valuable, objective, easy and reproducible method to assess the effects of the toxin.