A study examining the results of  poly-L-lactic acid (Sculptra Aesthetic) dermal filler was recently published. The multi-center study looked specifically at Sculptra’s treatment of the nasolabial folds, the lines that travel from each side of the nose to the corners of the mouth.

Doctors followed 233 people for 25 months during their treatments with either Sculptra or, for comparison, injectable human collagen (hyaluronic acid was not approved yet when this study was designed).

Among the group treated with Sculptra, a total of 106 out of 116 continued their treatments and remained in the study’s “long-term surveillance phase.” Their results indicate that Sculptra (poly-L-lactic acid) is superior to human collagen for treatment of nasolabial folds.

Photos via SculptraAesthetic.com

The initial results of both treatments were comparable, but after three months, the collagen group experienced a sharp decline in their results. Their “scores declined from 95.7 percent at week 3 to 15.3 percent by the month-13 follow-up visit, representing an 84 percent reduction from the maximum measurement of overall improvement,” write the authors.

The Sculptra group, however, saw results that endured much longer. At week 3, more than 99 percent of them reported “overall aesthetic improvement” in their nasolabial folds. Those results (patient evaluations) were maintained for 90 percent of the patients at 13 months, and 81 percent of the patients at the 25 month follow-up visit.

You can find this study in the April 2011 PRS Journal