Evaluation Of Immediate-Effect Skin Molding Agents Using DISC

Abstract

The present invention pertains to methods of characterizing the effects on the skin of skin-molding agents and to methods of characterizing the physical behavior of the skin-molding agents themselves. A preferred embodiment of the present invention uses a non-invasive, in vivo form of digital image speckle correlation to track deformation of human skin caused by the application of a skin-molding agent, in particular, an immediate-effect skin molding agent. The skin-molding agent may or may not be part of a composition. The application to the skin of a skin-molding agent may or may not be part of a treatment regimen. The present invention may be applied to any surface of the human body, to non-humans and to inert matter. Unlike in vitro methods and unlike invasive, in vivo methods that tension the skin with an apparatus, the present invention relies on the applied skin-molding agent to create before and after deformation images. From those images, it is possible to develop quantitative and qualitative characterizations of skin's movement and of the skin-molding agent itself. These characterizations will aid in the development of improved and/or customized skin molding agents and improved compositions comprising skin-molding agents. Generally, the data collected by the methods described herein, may also suggest improved and/or customized treatment regimens for molding the skin.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.