Seoul
Chief MD, Gangnam
Duk-ha Kim
The trust our patients have placed in this clinic was built on conviction and principle. We intend to hold to both, unchanged, through the next hundred years.
Guideline-based acne care guide
Acne Treatment
Acne is a medical condition with published treatment guidelines, and the 2024 American Academy of Dermatology guideline puts its strong recommendations on topical and oral medication rather than on device procedures. Chemical peels, laser and light-based devices and microneedling sit in a group where the panel judged the available evidence insufficient to make a recommendation — a statement about uncertainty, not a verdict that they fail.
- A condition with guidelines
- AAD 2024: 18 evidence-based recommendations, 5 good practice statements
- Strongly recommended
- Benzoyl peroxide, topical retinoids, topical antibiotics, oral doxycycline
- Procedures in the guideline
- Evidence judged insufficient to recommend peels, laser and light devices, microneedling
- 1726 nm clearance wording
- 510(k) substantial equivalence, for inflammatory acne vulgaris; comedonal acne not covered
Is acne a cosmetic concern or a medical condition with guidelines?
It is a medical condition, and dermatology societies publish clinical guidelines for it. The American Academy of Dermatology issued an updated acne management guideline in 2024 containing 18 evidence-based recommendations plus 5 good practice statements, covering topical therapy, systemic antibiotics, hormonal agents, oral isotretinoin and procedural options within one framework. That changes the first question. Before asking which device to book, it is worth asking what the guideline has already judged, and how confident it was in each judgement — because the answer is not the same for medication and for procedures.
Sources: AAD acne management guidelines 2024 (JAAD 2024;90(5):1006.e1-30)AAD — updated guidelines for acne management
What does the guideline recommend most strongly?
Medication, not procedures. The 2024 guideline gives strong recommendations to benzoyl peroxide, topical retinoids, topical antibiotics and oral doxycycline. Oral isotretinoin carries a strong recommendation for severe acne, for acne that is causing scarring or psychosocial burden, and for acne that has not responded to standard oral and topical therapy. Every one of those strong recommendations is a drug applied daily or taken by mouth over weeks to months, which is why a guideline-consistent acne plan usually opens with a prescription rather than with an appointment for a machine.
Sources: AAD acne management guidelines 2024 (JAAD 2024;90(5):1006.e1-30)AAD — updated guidelines for acne management
Where do laser and light procedures sit inside that guideline?
Outside the recommendation set. The guideline states that available evidence was insufficient to develop recommendations for procedures such as chemical peels, laser and light-based devices, and microneedling. Insufficient to develop a recommendation is a third category, separate from recommending for and recommending against: the studies were too few, too small or too inconsistent for the panel to take a position either way. The one procedural call the guideline does make in the negative is narrow and specific — a conditional recommendation against adding broadband light (IPL) to adapalene 0.3% gel.
Sources: AAD acne management guidelines 2024 (JAAD 2024;90(5):1006.e1-30)AAD — updated guidelines for acne management
How strong is the evidence behind light therapy and PDT?
Low, and the reason is the size and consistency of the trials rather than a demonstrated failure. The Cochrane review of light therapies for acne pooled 71 randomised trials with 4,211 participants, but the median trial enrolled 31 people. Photodynamic therapy using 20% aminolevulinic acid with blue light showed little to no difference from its comparator across 266 participants, at low certainty. Three pooled trials of methyl aminolevulinate PDT with red light, covering 360 participants at moderate certainty, found no significant difference from placebo in inflammatory or non-inflammatory lesion counts. Evidence on adverse effects was rated very low certainty, which means harms were measured poorly rather than shown to be absent. A 2024 Cochrane overview spanning six systematic reviews, 275 trials and 40,910 participants reached the same shape of conclusion for the whole field: no high-certainty evidence was found for the effects of any therapy included, with even benzoyl peroxide rated very low certainty. The accurate reading is not yet established, not does not work.
Sources: Cochrane — Light therapies for acne (Barbaric et al.)Cochrane overview — Topical, light-based and complementary interventions for acne (2024)
What are the 1726 nm acne lasers actually cleared for?
For inflammatory acne vulgaris, through a 510(k) clearance rather than a premarket approval. Cutera’s AviClear Laser System was cleared as K213461 on 24 March 2022: a 1726 nm indium phosphide diode laser whose predicate device was the Candela Smoothbeam 1450 nm system, with the submission concluding it could be used safely and effectively in mild to severe inflammatory acne vulgaris. The Accure Laser System was cleared as K242035 on 11 October 2024 with a Substantially Equivalent decision, listed for prescription use under 21 CFR 878.4810, product code GEX, and indicated for the long-term treatment of mild to severe inflammatory acne vulgaris. Two consequences follow. A 510(k) clearance is a finding of substantial equivalence to a device already legally marketed, not an approval issued after independent premarket review. And the wording covers inflammatory acne — comedonal acne, meaning blackheads and whiteheads without inflammation, is not inside that indication.
Sources: FDA 510(k) K242035 — Accure Laser System (2024-10-11)FDA 510(k) K213461 — AviClear Laser System (Cutera, 2022-03-24)
What can the study behind that clearance not tell you?
It cannot separate the laser from everything a patient would ordinarily be using alongside it. The pivotal study enrolled 104 participants, 103 of whom had moderate to severe acne, and delivered three treatments at intervals of two to five weeks. Among those treated, 79.8% reached at least a 50% reduction in inflammatory lesions at three months and 91.5% at one year. Those are single-arm figures: there was no control group, and concomitant acne medication was excluded by design — which the consensus panel itself names as the reason the laser’s isolated contribution in ordinary practice is difficult to interpret. The same panel positions the device accordingly: topical agents first, following the AAD guideline, for mild and comedonal acne, with the laser considered when inflammatory acne persists after three months of standard therapy.
Sources: Consensus panel recommendations — contact-cooled 1726 nm laser for acneAAD acne management guidelines 2024 (JAAD 2024;90(5):1006.e1-30)
Is squeezing out comedones a treatment?
The guideline does not treat it as an established one. In the Academy’s own summary of the 2024 update, acne lesion extraction appears in the same group as chemical peels, laser and light-based devices and microneedling: procedures for which the available evidence was insufficient to develop a recommendation. That is not a finding of harm and not a prohibition; it means the studies needed to place extraction in the treatment sequence have not been done to a standard the panel could use. So if a plan is built around repeated in-clinic extraction sessions, the guideline offers no support for that as the plan itself, and the components that do carry strong recommendations remain the medications.
Do procedures have to wait while you are taking isotretinoin?
Not all of them, and the blanket version of the old rule does not match the current review. A 2017 systematic review with expert consensus in JAMA Dermatology found insufficient evidence to justify delaying manual dermabrasion, superficial chemical peels, cutaneous surgery, laser hair removal, or fractional ablative and fractional non-ablative laser procedures in patients taking isotretinoin. Two things remained not recommended: mechanical dermabrasion and full-ablative laser resurfacing. The authors traced the widely repeated six-month waiting rule to three small case series published in the mid-1980s. Distinguishing those two lists is the point — this is a change in what the literature supports, not a reason to skip the conversation. Tell the clinic exactly what you are taking and when you started or stopped it.
Sources: Spring LK et al., JAMA Dermatol 2017 — isotretinoin and timing of procedures
Are acne scars the same problem as active acne?
No. They are a different target, and the order is fixed. A 2024 expert consensus on practical acne scar management states that it is essential to treat active acne before approaching actual scar treatment. A Bayesian network meta-analysis pooling 72 randomised trials in atrophic acne scars found that the highest-ranked combinations use devices, protocols and endpoints entirely different from those used against active inflammatory lesions, so a scar plan cannot be read as an upgraded acne plan. Both bodies of evidence carry limits worth stating: the consensus is expert opinion rather than trial data, and the network meta-analysis did not stratify by skin type, had short follow-up and showed high heterogeneity across the trials it combined.
Sources: Practical aspects of acne scar management — ASAP 2024 consensusAcne scar laser Bayesian network meta-analysis (Ann Transl Med 2022)
How long does the effect of an acne treatment last once a course finishes?
The one duration figure in the sources behind this page comes from the 1726 nm laser’s pivotal study, and it is worth reading with its own limits attached: 79.8% of participants reached at least a 50% reduction in inflammatory lesions at three months, and that figure rose to 91.5% at one year. That looks like a duration answer, but the same consensus panel reporting it flags what the number cannot separate — the study had no control group and excluded concomitant acne medication by design, so it cannot isolate how much of the one-year figure is the laser rather than acne’s own natural course or unrecorded product use during that year. No comparable long-term figure exists for the medications the guideline actually recommends most strongly, because their effect works on a different principle: benzoyl peroxide, topical retinoids, topical antibiotics and oral isotretinoin are used continuously over weeks to months, so what keeps the result going is the act of continuing, not a session whose effect decays afterward on a fixed schedule. Procedures the guideline placed in the insufficient-evidence group — light therapy, peels, microneedling, extraction — have no duration data behind them for the same reason the guideline could not recommend them: the trials were too few, too small or too inconsistent to produce one. What actually determines how long any improvement holds is therefore outside any single figure here — whether medication continues after a procedure, how consistently topical treatment is used, and whether new lesions form during the follow-up window all move independently of a laser clearance study. The consultation question that follows is what the clinic means when it quotes a result: the laser’s one-year figure from a single-arm study without a control group, or an expectation built on continued daily medication — because those are different claims resting on different evidence.
Sources: Consensus panel recommendations — contact-cooled 1726 nm laser for acneAAD acne management guidelines 2024 (JAAD 2024;90(5):1006.e1-30)AAD — updated guidelines for acne management
What should you settle in the consultation before booking?
Settle the diagnosis and the sequence before the device. Ask whether your acne is being judged inflammatory or comedonal, since the laser clearances are worded for inflammatory acne only. Ask which guideline-recommended medications have been tried, at what strength and for how long, because the consensus panel places the laser after three months of standard therapy rather than instead of it. Ask what the device is registered for in the country where you are being treated, how many in-person sessions the plan contains and over what period, and what happens to the medication side of the plan once you fly home. If scarring is part of what you want addressed, ask for it to be planned separately, after the active acne is controlled.
Sources: AAD acne management guidelines 2024 (JAAD 2024;90(5):1006.e1-30)Consensus panel recommendations — contact-cooled 1726 nm laser for acnePractical aspects of acne scar management — ASAP 2024 consensus
Medication, light, laser or extraction: where does each one stand?
This table maps four groups by where guidelines place them, how certain the underlying evidence is, and what the regulatory record actually covers. It is not a ranking and not an efficacy comparison: the rows come from different documents using different methods, so no row can be read as better than another.
| Approach | Position in the 2024 AAD guideline | Certainty of the cited evidence | Regulatory scope and what to confirm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topical and oral medication | Strong recommendations for benzoyl peroxide, topical retinoids, topical antibiotics and oral doxycycline; oral isotretinoin strongly recommended for severe acne, acne causing scarring or psychosocial burden, and acne that failed standard therapy | Graded inside the guideline, but the 2024 Cochrane overview of 275 trials and 40,910 participants still found no high-certainty evidence for any included therapy, rating even benzoyl peroxide very low | Prescribed medicines dispensed and supervised under national rules; confirm how the prescription continues after you return home |
| Light therapy and PDT | Inside the group where evidence was judged insufficient to develop a recommendation; adding broadband light (IPL) to adapalene 0.3% gel carries a conditional recommendation against | 71 randomised trials, 4,211 participants, median trial size 31; ALA-PDT with blue light low certainty, MAL-PDT with red light moderate certainty and no significant difference from placebo in lesion counts; adverse-effect evidence very low certainty | Light source, protocol and any photosensitising agent vary widely; confirm the exact source, the protocol and whether a photosensitiser is applied |
| 1726 nm laser | Not separately recommended; the consensus panel reviewing it places topical therapy first and considers the laser only when inflammatory acne persists after three months of standard therapy | Pivotal data are single-arm: 104 participants, no control group, concomitant acne medication excluded by design, so the isolated laser effect in ordinary practice cannot be read from it | US 510(k) clearances — substantial equivalence, not premarket approval: AviClear K213461 (2022), Accure K242035 (2024, prescription use), both worded for inflammatory acne vulgaris, with comedonal acne outside that wording. Confirm registration in the country of treatment |
| Extraction and in-clinic routine care | Acne lesion extraction appears in the same insufficient-evidence group as peels, light and laser devices and microneedling in the Academy’s summary of the update | No recommendation was possible, so no certainty grade attaches to it; absence of usable evidence is neither proof of benefit nor proof of harm | Not a regulated device indication; confirm who performs it, and whether it is presented as the plan itself or as an adjunct alongside prescribed treatment |
Insufficient evidence to develop a recommendation means uncertainty, not a finding that a procedure fails. Equally, a 510(k) clearance is a regulatory equivalence decision rather than proof of comparative effectiveness. Nothing in this table replaces an in-person diagnosis.
Sources: AAD acne management guidelines 2024 (JAAD 2024;90(5):1006.e1-30)AAD — updated guidelines for acne managementCochrane — Light therapies for acne (Barbaric et al.)Cochrane overview — Topical, light-based and complementary interventions for acne (2024)FDA 510(k) K242035 — Accure Laser System (2024-10-11)FDA 510(k) K213461 — AviClear Laser System (Cutera, 2022-03-24)Consensus panel recommendations — contact-cooled 1726 nm laser for acne
Medical care at Abijou
Care is provided by the medical team at the branch you select. These clinicians lead the three branches linked from this guide; confirm the doctor assigned to your visit with that branch.
Chief MD, Myeongdong
Cheol-su Yoon
I want to be thinking about how the patient feels right up to the last moment of the procedure.
Chief MD, Hongdae
Jae-wook Kim
I will give my best with the attentiveness to catch even the smallest change.
Listed branch medical team — not a medical-review byline for this article.
Frequently asked questions
What does inflammatory acne mean, and why does that wording keep appearing?
Inflammatory acne means the red, raised lesions — papules, pustules and nodules — as distinct from comedonal acne, which is blackheads and whiteheads without visible inflammation. The wording matters because the US clearances for 1726 nm acne lasers are written for inflammatory acne vulgaris: AviClear as K213461 in 2022, and Accure as K242035 in 2024, indicated for the long-term treatment of mild to severe inflammatory acne vulgaris. Comedonal acne is not inside that indication, so a device marketed for acne in general is not automatically cleared for the kind of acne you actually have.
When a guideline says the evidence was insufficient, what does that mean?
It means the panel could not take a position in either direction, which is a distinct outcome from recommending for or against. The 2024 AAD guideline contains 18 evidence-based recommendations and 5 good practice statements; chemical peels, laser and light-based devices and microneedling were left without any recommendation because the available evidence was insufficient to develop one. The guideline does make one negative procedural call, and it is narrow: a conditional recommendation against adding broadband light (IPL) to adapalene 0.3% gel. Reading insufficient as does not work overstates the finding; reading it as recommended reverses it.
How is a 1726 nm laser meant to act, and what does the public record actually establish?
The public record establishes the wavelength, the delivery method and the cleared indication rather than a proven mechanism in any individual. AviClear is documented as a 1726 nm indium phosphide diode laser cleared in 2022 with the 1450 nm Candela Smoothbeam as its predicate device, and the consensus paper describes contact-cooled 1726 nm delivery. What those documents cannot show is how much of an observed change comes from the laser alone: the pivotal study had no control group and excluded concomitant acne medication by design, which the panel itself flags as the limitation on interpreting the device in real practice.
Medication or device — which one does the evidence support more clearly?
Medication, by a wide margin in terms of where guidelines are willing to commit. Benzoyl peroxide, topical retinoids, topical antibiotics and oral doxycycline all carry strong recommendations in the 2024 AAD guideline, while chemical peels, laser and light-based devices and microneedling sit in the group where evidence was judged insufficient to make any recommendation at all. The field as a whole is less settled than that contrast suggests: the 2024 Cochrane overview of six reviews, 275 trials and 40,910 participants found no high-certainty evidence for any included therapy and rated even benzoyl peroxide very low certainty. The gap is about where formal guidance exists, not about one option being proven and the other disproven.
Is a light or PDT session the same category as a 1726 nm laser session?
No — they rest on different evidence bases and different regulatory records. Light therapy and PDT have been studied in 71 randomised trials with 4,211 participants, but at a median of 31 people per trial, and pooled MAL-PDT with red light in 360 participants showed no significant difference from placebo in lesion counts at moderate certainty. The 1726 nm devices have a narrower and more recent record: 510(k) clearances worded for inflammatory acne vulgaris, supported by a 104-person single-arm study with no control group. Neither record supports presenting the two as interchangeable, and neither places either of them at the front of a treatment plan.
I mainly want the marks from old breakouts dealt with — is that the same treatment?
No, that is scar treatment, and it is planned separately and later. The 2024 ASAP consensus states that treating active acne is essential before approaching actual scar treatment, and the Bayesian network meta-analysis of 72 randomised trials in atrophic acne scars uses devices, protocols and endpoints entirely different from those used against active lesions. That analysis also carries limits — no stratification by skin type, short follow-up and high heterogeneity — so it maps what has been trialled rather than what any one person will get. Ask the clinic to state the scar plan separately from the acne plan, with the active acne addressed first.
Will it hurt, and how long is the recovery?
The sources used on this page do not report pain scores or recovery times, so no figure can honestly be quoted here. What they do report is how confident the literature is about harms: the Cochrane review rated the evidence on adverse effects of light therapies very low certainty, meaning adverse effects have been measured poorly rather than shown to be rare. Ask the treating clinic what is expected for the exact device and settings they use, what proportion of their patients report what, and how that fits your travel dates. An absolute assurance that a procedure is painless or free of downtime is a claim without published support behind it.
What should make me contact the clinic after a procedure?
This checklist is general post-procedure safety guidance rather than a finding of the studies cited elsewhere on this page. Contact the clinic promptly for blistering, a suspected burn, pain that increases instead of settling, drainage or pus, spreading redness or warmth, fever, a crust that does not heal, or a treated area that turns noticeably darker or lighter than the skin around it. Seek emergency care for breathing difficulty, fainting, or sudden swelling of the lips, mouth, tongue or throat. Before travelling home, ask how to reach the clinic from abroad and who reviews photographs if something changes after your flight.
Can a course be completed during a short trip to Korea?
Not in the form the studied course was run. The pivotal 1726 nm study delivered three treatments at intervals of two to five weeks, so that course spans roughly one and a half to three months rather than one visit, and the reported response points were at three months and one year. The part of an acne plan that does carry strong guideline recommendations — topical agents and oral medication — is used daily or over weeks at home, not delivered in a clinic chair. Plan the trip around what genuinely has to happen in person, and settle in advance how the prescription side continues once you leave.
Are device procedures safer than medication because no drug is involved?
That does not follow from the evidence available. For light therapies the Cochrane review rated adverse-effect evidence very low certainty — poorly measured, not proven absent — so the apparent absence of reported harms partly reflects how little was recorded. Meanwhile the options carrying strong guideline recommendations are prescribed medicines used under clinical supervision, and oral isotretinoin, strongly recommended for severe, scarring or treatment-resistant acne, is a prescribing decision made and monitored by a clinician. Compare what is actually known about each option instead of assuming that avoiding a drug removes risk.
Do I have to stop my topical retinoid or oral antibiotic before a laser session?
No source cited on this page sets such a rule, and one common misreading is worth naming directly. The pivotal 1726 nm study excluded concomitant acne medication, but that was a design choice made to isolate the device, not a clinical instruction to patients — and the consensus panel names that same exclusion as the reason the laser’s standalone contribution is hard to interpret in ordinary practice. Whether anything is paused around a session is a decision for the clinician who knows your current regimen, so bring the names, strengths and start dates of everything you use, including products prescribed at home.
Does a US clearance mean the device is approved in Korea or in my own country?
No. The US entries here are 510(k) clearances — findings of substantial equivalence to a device already legally marketed in the US — and they apply to the US only. AviClear was cleared as K213461 in March 2022, and Accure as K242035 in October 2024 for prescription use under 21 CFR 878.4810, product code GEX. Registration category, permitted claims and approved indications are decided country by country, so a US clearance number says nothing about the status of the same device in Korea or where you live. Ask the clinic which model is used and under which national registration.
How should I compare acne treatment quotes between clinics?
Align what each quote contains before comparing amounts. Confirm first whether the plan is medication-led or device-led, because those are not the same product; then how many in-clinic sessions are included and at what interval, whether follow-up visits and a repeat assessment are inside the quote, whether prescriptions are included or billed separately, and whether any scar work has been folded into an acne quote. A quote for a course of device sessions and a quote for a prescription plan answer different questions, so the totals are not comparable on their own.
Who is a device-based acne procedure actually for?
That is decided at an in-person consultation, not from a device name. Two anchors from the sources frame it. The 1726 nm clearances are worded for inflammatory acne vulgaris, and the consensus panel that reviewed the device recommends topical therapy first for mild and comedonal acne, following the AAD guideline, with the laser considered when inflammatory acne persists after three months of standard treatment. Severe acne, acne causing scarring or psychosocial burden, and acne that has failed standard therapy are where the guideline places a strong recommendation for oral isotretinoin — a prescribing decision rather than a device booking. Bring your full treatment history, current medicines and travel dates so the clinic can judge sequence as well as suitability.
How Abijou works
We started in Gangnam in 2006 and the network now runs 17 branches across Korea. The line we work to is skin transformation woven into everyday life — care you can keep up with, rather than one dramatic change.
- Across the 17 branches in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon and Busan: over 1,000 medical professionals and more than 350 certified medical devices
- Authentic products only, in appropriate amounts — the treatment is fitted to the condition, not to a package
- Prices are quoted from each branch’s published price list as it stands
Contact and location
- Phone
- 1544-0377
Free Consultation
Booking happens at the branch
There is no inquiry form on this page. Once you have picked a branch above, open that branch’s site or the official reservation center and choose a time yourself.
- No deposit and no online prepayment — everything is paid at the visit
- Per-treatment prices are published for each branch on the official reservation center
- English, Japanese and Chinese are supported alongside Korean