Inflammatory effect of monopolar radiofrequency treatment on collagen fibrils in rabbit skins.

This study quantitatively examined the effects of monopolar radiofrequency (RF) treatment on the progressive nanostructural changes in the inflammatory effect of in vivo rabbit dermal collagen fibrils during postoperative 7 days. Conventional histologic analysis and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were employed to assess the nanostructural dermal response in 6 RF groups that underwent 2 passes of RF treatments (10 and 20 W), and 1 untreated control rabbit. After monopolar RF treatment, the rabbit skin clearly showed changes in the collagen network structure. The RF-treated group showed regular parallel arrangement of collagen fibrils whereas normal group showed tangled nanostructures. This phenomenon was remarkable at postoperative 7 days. Therefore, monopolar RF treatment leads to underlying collagen contracture and promotes new collagen formation. A multi-pass treatment of low-energy RF led to the highest contraction of collagen fibrils at the nanostructural level, compared to a single pass of high-energy RF.