As mentioned in the last few blogs, new technology is always coming out quickly to the market. When I was in Chicago at the Fall Meeting of the American Academy of Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, I looked into Mentor’s new Prevelle Silk, which is another hyaluronic-acid (HA) based product to compete against Restylane, Resylane Lyft and Juvederm. The major benefit touted with this new product is that it contains Lidocaine in it to reduce the discomfort associated with injection. Although on the surface, this sounds good, I really do not encounter any discomfort with my patients owing to the short-acting block that I use during treatment.

Basically, Prevelle Silk contains 5.5 mg/cc of hyaluronic acid, which is a fourth of the content that is contained in Restylane, Resylane Lyft , and Juvederm. When I asked the Mentor rep in Chicago about this observation, I said, “Oh, that sounds like the exact amount that Captique had in their HA product.” He said, “Yeah, that’s because it is manufactured by Genzyme, who made Captique.” Aha! Prevelle basically is Captique with lidocaine. I used Captique in the past (which has fondly been called “Craptique”) because it simply lasts such a short time. With so little HA content in the product, longevity can be as short as 3 to 4 weeks in my experience. If you are lucky, perhaps 6 weeks or so. This is a product that I have no interest in incorporating into my practice at this time.

Here is a link to my video log on Evolence (if you missed that one) and on Prevelle Silk.