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The authors believe that monitoring the presence of hydroquinone may be useful for an optimal personalized treatment of melasma and to provide the specialist a support tool to control the administration of this type of bleaching agents.

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Acne is a skin disease with chronic and inflammatory characteristics that is present on the pilosebaceous unit appearing first at puberty and often in adulthood. Its pathophysiology involves hyperseborrhea, non-normal follicular-based keratinization, and Propionibacterium acnes increase in the pilosebaceous unit resulting in a change in the cutaneous microenvironment leading to inflammatory reactions. 1 Ablative fractional laser (AFL) surgery is widely used in the medical field because it is able to reduce trauma due to the short-time exposure to radiation. 2 Isotretinoin has been considered for several decades the gold standard for nodulocystic acne or inflammatory acne, which has failed other course treatments, due to its anti-inflammatory properties. 3It has been established that combining the use of AFL surgery with oral isotretinoin improvement is observed on acne scars in a short period of time with no acne relapse or adverse effects over the resurfaced skin. 4-8 Abstract Background: Ablative fractional laser surgery is a common technique for treating acne scars. However, an in vivo and noninvasive analysis of the histologic variations between acne skin and the resulting resurfaced skin is needed in order to evaluate the wound healing process of the scars induced by the ablative fractional laser surgery. Materials and Methods: Nine patients with acne scars underwent a single treatment with a CO 2 ablative fractional laser surgery. Collagen presence on the resurfaced skin was noninvasively assessed by means of Raman spectroscopy and principal component analysis.Results: Principal component analysis shows that all the patients presented a collagen regeneration on the resurfaced skin after the laser treatment. Conclusion:Collagen plays a crucial role in the wound healing process. By assessing the collagen presence on the skin, it was possible to quantify the regenerative effects of the ablative fractional laser in a noninvasive way.