Very high-frequency ultrasound with frequencies of 10 MHz and 19 MHz

Wellcomet^® GmbH has launched ultrasound devices with frequencies of 10 MHz (since 2005) and 19 MHz (since 2017) for therapeutic purposes in dermatology and aesthetic medicine.
Although therapeutic ultrasound has long been used in medicine to introduce products by phonophoresis or for pain treatment in physical therapy, its application in aesthetic practice has been limited for a long time.

The main reason for this was the relatively deep effect of ultrasound waves with frequencies of 1 MHz - 3 MHz, which were therefore traditionally used in physical therapy rather than on the skin. The half-value depth (the distance after which the sound intensity is reduced to 50% of its value on the skin surface) of such frequencies in the body is approximately 3 cm at 1 MHz and approximately 1 cm at 3 MHz.For ultrasound waves with a frequency of 10 MHz, this value is approximately 3 mm, while at 19 MHz it is only 1.2-1.5 mm, which makes the use of such very high-frequency waves in dermatology and aesthetics significantly more advantageous than lower frequencies.
The effect is thus mainly concentrated on the skin and upper subcutis, where the skin aging processes take place or pathological skin changes occur (Fig. 1).



Fig. 1. Penetration depths of ultrasonic waves with different frequencies

After several hundred in vitro laboratory experiments at the Karlsruhe Research Center, in which numerous cell responses to different ultrasound frequencies and combinations thereof were investigated, it became clear that the application of higher frequencies should have various positive effects on inflammatory and hyperproliferative skin diseases and, conversely, can induce strong skin regeneration.


These important findings, only a small portion of which have been published to date (see Sontag W, Kruglikov IL. (2009) Expression of heat shock proteins after ultrasound exposure in HL-60 cells. Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology, 35(6), 1032-1041), are currently part of Wellcomet^® GmbH's essential know-how for the successful application of numerous ultrasound-based Wellcomet^® technologies.
Based on this research, Dr. Kruglikov first formulated a special role for very high-frequency ultrasound waves in anti-aging treatments in 2010 (Kruglikov IL, Sontag W. (2010) Ultrasound of 10 MHz frequency as a novel strategy for skin anti-aging therapy. Medical Hypotheses, 74(3), 620-621).


In addition, more than thirty clinical studies have investigated the effect of such “very high-frequency ultrasound waves” at 10 MHz and 19 MHz, as well as their combinations (in the form of LDM^® technology) on the skin, which in turn made it possible to classify some devices from Wellcomet^® GmbH as medical devices.