26/08/2026
The FDA has cleared Ultherapy PRIME for the knees.
In August, Merz Aesthetics announced clearance for improving the appearance of skin laxity on the knees, making it the first energy based aesthetic device to carry an indication for that area.
Something that does not get said often enough in our field: congratulations to Merz Aesthetics, and thank you for doing the unglamorous part of the work.
Most of the body below the jawline has been treated off label for years. Practitioners learned knees, arms and elbows from each other, at meetings, from borrowed slide decks, from whatever a colleague was generous enough to share. That is how innovation starts. It is not how it should stay. When a manufacturer funds the studies and takes an indication through regulatory review, practitioners gain something word of mouth cannot give them: parameters, patient selection criteria and anatomical boundaries with accountability attached.
We have also spent efforts to advance our field, with our medical director, Dr Sylvia publishing in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology in 2021 on combining microfocused ultrasound with visualisation and subdermal calcium hydroxyapatite for laxity of the upper arms (link in comment). We measured skin firmness and elasticity with instruments rather than relying on impressions, and we followed patients out to six months.
Doing that work taught us how much the body asks of you. Depth selection changes with the tissue in front of you. The anatomy underneath decides where you stop. Patient selection matters more off the face than on it, because the arms and the knees will show you very quickly when someone was never a candidate. None of that is obvious, and none of it should have to be learned privately, one clinic at a time.
More indications, more data, better guidelines. That is how a field earns its credibility.
