Guest: Dr. Shobhan Manoharan
Presenter: Patrick Reyes
Guest Bio: Dr Manoharan is a laser and cosmetic dermatologist who is actively involved in the training of dermatology registrars, medical students, general practitioners and pharmacists in all aspects of dermatology and is involved in public education with respect to skin care, skin cancer prevention and surgical and rejuvenation options. He has a special interest in the treatment of acne and acne scarring.

Segment overview: In today’s Health Supplier Segment, we welcome Dr. Shobhan Manoharan of Brisbane Skin to share his insights about the breakthrough acne treatment Kleresca. The treatment uses a high intensity in-clinic light device together with a photoconverter gel to kill bacteria in the skin and initiate healing.

Transcription
Health Professional Radio – BioPhotonic Acne Treatment

Patrick Reyes: Welcome to Health Professional Radio, my name is Patrick Reyes and on today’s show we are joined Dr. Shobhan Manoharan. He’s the Director at Brisbane Skin and also a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Queensland and Griffith University. Welcome to the show Shobhan.

Dr. Shobhan Manoharan: Thank you Patrick, nice to be here.

P: So can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

M: Patrick I’m a Laser and Cosmetic Dermatologist in private practice in Brisbane, I’ve started my life as a General Dermatologist but for the last 2 years, I’ve mainly concentrated on aesthetic and laser procedural dermatology. I have two private practice clinics, one’s known as Brisbane Skin it’s in the heart city over at Newstead in a large center known as Westside Dermatology and we also have a range of subspecialty clinics including the Psoriasis Institute, Sweat Free Clinics and my Skin Cancer Centers, so we do have a good range of dermatology services that I’m involved in. I have a personal special interest in the treatment of acne and acne scarring, acne scar treatment in particular is a real passion for me. Rejuvenation and photoaging is a concern that I deal with regularly as well, I also have an interest in treating pigmentation and about a third of my work is in regards to the diagnosis and medical and surgical management of skin cancer.

P: I see and I have taken a look at the website of Brisbane Skin and you guys have a wide array of treatments and services. What would you say are the common treatments that are provided to patients?

M: We are a full service dermatology center, so we treat everything from even though I don’t do the inflammatory skin conditions so much myself but my colleagues here are involved in conditions like eczema and psoriasis and I deal with that on a daily basis. I deal with a lot of the aesthetic pigmentation and rejuvenation side of skin and skin management. Very popular services with us range from very low downtime procedures, no downtime procedures like injectables and chemical peels, moderate level treatments like Fraxel Laser for instance, we’re the biggest provider, most experienced provider of Fraxel in the country because it’s a very effective treatment and with sort of a three to five day downtime and all the way up to very heavy laser procedures for the appropriate patients, so I do heavy facial resurfacing with Erbium and CO2 ablative lasers, this is for patients who have very bad acne scarring, patients who have severe burn scars and for people who require it for rejuvenation purposes as well, I describe it as a laser facelift. So it’s a varied clinic and it’s a full range of services and that gives you a little bit of an idea on services that are quite popular with our patients.

P: So speaking about treatment for acne, another reason you’re actually here on Health Professional Radio is to talk about a new acne treatment that has made it to Australia. Can you tell us more about it?

M: Absolutely. Now it’s very exciting, it’s very interesting and very new technology, it’s known as Kleresca. It has been available overseas in Canada and certainly there’s trials over in Europe with a paper about to be published in the International Journal of Dermatology but just a few months ago Kleresca has become available in very selected specialist clinics here in Australia. So my clinics Westside Dermatology and Brisbane Skin have exclusive rights to Kleresca in Queensland at the moment. Certainly we have been having some very interesting and very exciting results with this and basically it’s a therapy which utilizes a wavelength of LED light with an application of a photoconverting gel on the patient and over a nine minute period illuminates the area of concern so be it the face or the chest or back. Treatments are repeated twice a week and they’re generally done for a cycle of six weeks giving the patient 12 treatments and we’ve had some very interesting and very exciting results with improvements over that duration of time. What we’re also becoming aware of in these studies, well I look forward to these studies being released in the International Journal of Dermatology but patients have been having some ongoing improvement with this six months into treatment as well so after the 12 week treatment cycle they’ve had ongoing improvements. So that certainly something that’s interesting and exciting, from our perspective it’s certainly suites patients who are not looking for pharmacological therapies or are unsuitable for medications either oral or topical or are pregnant, breast feeding for instance and they’re not appropriate for a lot of the typical anti-acne medications. This sets very nicely alongside some of our other treatment options that we offer as well and these include treatment such as chemical peels and other forms of phototherapy but this is a new form of non-pharmacological therapy that’s certainly a good place in the treatment of moderate acne.

P: That’s very exciting news to hear that it’s actually getting, there’s actually improvements in other people’s skin or acne. And now a majority of our listeners are clinicians of one kind or another, what’s the message you’d like them to hear from you today?

M: Look, two things obviously with respect to the new product that’s been launched, the Kleresca, certainly considered referring patients on for this if you have patients who are in the mild-moderate acne spectrum who would like a non-pharmacological treatment option or who are not suitable for treatment. I also would like to say that acne is one of the conditions that we have in dermatology that is very treatable and very curable so please do send patients over for next line treatments because we can give them very good results and prevent scarring as well. If you do have patients with scarring obviously send them to us for scar management options. Also I’m very much about preventative skin care, so it is getting acne patients early and treating them appropriately early, getting skin cancer patients early, treating them early and also even with our rejuvenation patients, treating patients in conservative fashion early in their life, getting them the right skin care, very minimal, non-invasive treatments will often mean that they’ll not requiring heavier treatments as they age and get older.

P: Alright and how can our audience, members get more information about Brisbane Skin?

M: The easiest way to get more information about Brisbane Skin is to go to our website brisbaneskin.com.au, you’re also welcome to come into the practice. We have free consultations with our nurses and therapists here, they’re here 6 days a week, there are dermatologists here 5 to 6 days a week as well that you can have referrals to see us or you can walk-in and book yourself in for a dermatology consult. Any questions at all feel free there’s some very good patient question sections in our website, so a lot of patients just drop us a line with queries and questions that they have and they’re often answered by either myself or one of my other colleagues here.

P: Alright, so again that website is www.brisbaneskin.com.au . And for our last question which is a favorite question among Health Professional Radio, what’s the biggest misconception about your services that keeps you awake at night?

M: (Laughs) Not too much keeps me awake at night but unless the football’s on, but I think sometimes there’s not enough understanding that dermatologists like myself are really the specialists when it comes to all aspects of skin health, skin care and beauty. Patients will often believe they need to go to a skin cancer clinic to have their skin checked and skin cancer treated or a cosmetic clinic or a laser clinic to have their aesthetic needs attended to. Sometimes I even get asked if we’re real doctors or whether we go to medical school prior to becoming dermatologists so it’s interesting. I think the awareness needs to be placed out there that certainly when it comes to any aspect of skin, cosmetic medical surgical really dermatologists are truly the specialists and we’re open to seeing patients and we’re very available to seeing patients. Our waiting list are, I have a big group of dermatologists that work with me and therefore the problem that used to face patients who are having 6 months waiting list to see a dermatologist is not an issue with our clinics, so most patients can come in to see a dermatologist in our clinic within one or two weeks.

P: Alright, well thank you Shobhan for joining us today, it’s been a pleasure having you on Health Professional Radio.

M: It’s been an absolute pleasure Patrick. Thank you for having me.

P: Thank you. Now if you’ve missed my conversation with Dr. Shobhan Manoharan there’s an archive audio file on both YouTube and SoundCloud or you can also read a transcript of this conversation on our website. Now all of those resources are available in the Health Professional website at www.hpr.fm. Again my name is Patrick Reyes and thank you for listening to Health Professional Radio.

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