Abstract
Local anesthesia consists in a reversible nerve conduction block on a skin area, which is achieved thanks to the interference with anesthetic on ionic permeability at the level of the nerve cell membrane. Surface anesthesia has traditionally been obtained with the use of refrigerant sprays (ethyl chloride, dichlorotetrafluoroethane), which induce a slight short-term anesthesia and can be used for fast and superficial interventions. Tumescent anesthesia is based on the use of low concentrations of anesthetic and vasoconstrictor in large volumes of saline solution that are infiltrated into the subcutaneous tissue to obtain a “tumescence” of the tissue. By tradition and necessity, general anesthesia is hardly ever used in dermatological laser therapy; most of the work comprises outpatient treatments, and most of the time it is perfectly executable with the different local anesthetic techniques possibly associated with sedation.