Visualizing the skin hydration benefits of a ceramide-containing lotion in women with dry skin using reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM)

The stratum corneum extracellular matrix is composed of lipids, predominantly ceramides, arranged into lamellar layers that fill the intercellular space and links corneocytes into a barrier. This permeability barrier is critical to impeding transepidermal water loss and maintaing skin hydration. Skin hydration has an affect on keratinocyte morphology, impacting cellular volume and morphology at the surface and in deeper layers of the epidermis. Hydration is typically assessed using biophysical measurments of skin’s dielectric properties. In this study, the morphology of dry skin before and after treatment with a ceramide-containing moisturizer was evaulated in vivo using Reflectance Confocal Microscopy (RCM) to visualize the impact of hydration on the stratum corenum.

Nathalie De Carvalho, MD, PhD; Beatriz Santanna; Izabella Martorelli; Nada Baalbaki; Gene Colón