Early Treatment Initiation Improves Outcomes in Nevus of Ota: A 10-Year Retrospective Study

Nevus of Ota is a psychologically burdensome facial pigmentation birthmark common in Asian populations. Laser therapy is currently the first-line treatment, but no guidelines on when to initiate treatment have yet been established.

Our objective was to determine the correlation between treatment efficacy and safety, risk of recurrence, and age of treatment initiation in patients receiving laser therapy for nevus of Ota.

We conducted a 10-year (2008–2018) retrospective cohort study of all patients who completed a minimum of five laser treatments at Siriraj Skin Laser Center, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.

A total of 84 patients (aged 4 months–50 years) with nevus of Ota lesions were enrolled in the study. All patients were treated with a 1064-nm Q-switched Nd:YAG or a 755-nm or 1064-nm picosecond-domain laser (or a combination thereof). Our analysis identified that initiation of laser therapy before the age of 5 years was a significant factor in reducing the number of sessions necessary to achieve aesthetic improvement (P < 0.01; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.06–3.21). In total, 18 patients (21.4%) initiating treatment before the age of 5 years required an average of 2, 4, and 7 treatment sessions to achieve > 25, 50, and 75% of pigment lightening, respectively, whereas 66 patients (78.6%) initiating treatment after the age of 5 years required an average of 3, 7, and 11 sessions to achieve comparable clearance. The risk of postinflammatory hyperpigmentation was significantly lower in patients starting treatment before the age of 5 years (P < 0.01; 95% CI − 43.76 to − 11.94). Recurrences were not observed in patients achieving > 95% clearance.

In our patient cohort, initiation of laser treatment for nevus of Ota before the age of 5 years significantly improved therapeutic outcomes and reduced the risk of adverse events and recurrence.

ClinicalTrials.gov PRS number: NCT04481178.