Artiste – Assisted Injection System

Throughout the years we have seen systems come and go that are supposed to make our lives as an aesthetic injector easy, but we are yet to use a system that delivers the ease, speed and comfort that we can achieve in daily clinics using expertise and topical or local anaesthetic.

We remained sceptical when we heard of the new Artiste system by Nordson Micromedics.  We were approached to see if we were interested in utilising this system during our botox and dermal filler training courses, our initial thoughts were that we could not see it fit into our company although it may be of interest to our tutors.

Upon delivery of the system, it was easy to assemble and to use with fool proof instructions.  The old Juvederm Ultra syringes do not fit the hand pieces, however all other syringes can be accommodated by the different hand pieces that are available.

The pressure gauge is easily changed to adjust to the different thickness of dermal fillers that are to be injected and the higher the pressure the faster the flow.  The system would be suitable for use by all although great care and skill is still required to ensure the right injection depth is gained.  it is also suitable to those practitioners that prefer to inject quickly or at a slower pace.

Booked into our Cosmetica clinic today we had lip augmentations, peri oral lines, oral commissures and liquid face lifts.  50 % of the patients were injected manually and the remaining patients were injected using the Artiste system.  All patients had topical anaesthetic applied for 30 minutes prior to treatment and were asked to score the treatmetn on a pain scale of 1 – 10, the lower the number equating to a pain free treatment.

Those patients injected manually assessed their pain scale as 6 – 7 whereas the patients injected with the Artiste system stated their pain scale was around a 3. All patients had been injected previously and the Artiste group had previously been inejcted manually and made a comparison of the manual inejction being a pain scale of an average of 6 out of 10.

As well as the comfort scale we noted that each syringe of dermal filler lasted longer than we would normally expect when using manual skills yet achieved the same results.

The positives of using the system are the economisation of the product and the comfort of the patient but does this outweigh the negatives?  We could only really find 2, firstly the price £3000 + VAT and the treatment time was extended reducing the profit margin that can be expected.  In time you may be able to shorten the injection time and we will monitor this throughout the next few weeks.

We do not think it would be a system we could use on our basic courses in view of the fact that new aesthetic practitioners may not be able to justify the price tag.  However, it is something that we would use in clinic, in our advanced courses and we would recommend that all injectors trial this sytem.