PCL: unlike hyaluronic acid, there is nothing that dissolves it — that is the difference that matters

Searching PubMed for the brand name known in Korea returns not one paper about this procedure — only unrelated work by authors who happen to share the spelling as a surname. Every study on this page was published under a generic description: 'polycaprolactone-based filler' or 'liquid PCL'.

Let us be exact about what that means. It does not mean the product is bad, and it does not mean it is good. It is the plain fact that no trial has been published about that specific product.

And PCL products differ from one another in real ways. Microspheres in a carrier gel and a gel-free liquid go into different planes, spread differently and fill differently. The 2015 randomised trial below used a microsphere filler.

Reading one product's trial as evidence for another because they share a polymer would repeat, in the procedure layer, exactly the mistake this site warns about in the ingredient layer: concentration and vehicle matter more than the name.

A 2015 randomised, prospective, blinded, split-face study run in the United Arab Emirates. Forty subjects received a PCL-based filler in one nasolabial fold and a non-animal stabilised hyaluronic acid (NASHA) filler in the other.

At 6, 9 and 12 months the PCL side showed statistically significant improvement on the Wrinkle Severity Rating Scale and greater improvement on the Global Aesthetic Improvement Scale. Both products were equally safe and well tolerated.

The limits, plainly: forty people, a single centre, and this one trial is all there is. We found no independent study asking the same question again.

The control is also another filler. No trial compares against doing nothing — though for a volumising procedure that limitation bites less hard than it does for a device, because the material physically occupies space.

The 2025 study followed thirty patients treated in the middle third of the face with a liquid PCL filler over six months, in two sessions delivered with a 25G cannula.

Significant improvements in skin quality and volume were reported along with high satisfaction; adverse events were mild and transient.

The authors call it a pilot study in the title. There is no control group and no randomisation. A baseline-to-six-months result is mixed in with time, lighting, posture and knowing you were treated.

Still, human studies of liquid PCL specifically are scarce, so this single paper is close to the only published clinical data on that formulation.

This is the most important item on the page.

A hyaluronic acid filler that occludes a vessel can be dissolved with hyaluronidase. PCL has no such antidote. The background sentence of the 2025 study says it outright: managing vascular embolism from PCL fillers is challenging because they cannot be dissolved quickly.

That study looked back at the records of ten patients with vascular embolism after PCL injection. Heparin and nitroglycerin produced significant improvement in blood flow and reduced ischaemia, with follow-up from one month to one year.

How to read it matters. That a management approach exists is good news, but it is a retrospective record of ten patients with no control group. And the fact that such a study was needed at all tells you something about the material.

The blindness figures belong here too. In the 2026 systematic review, PCL has no published cases of blindness and one case of facial artery embolism. In the same review CaHA had at least 11. PCL's number being smaller is a fact — but usage volumes and reporting practices differ, so it cannot be read straight off as a risk ranking.

Two case reports, one patient each. They cannot tell you a rate. They can only tell you what is possible.

2021 (Taiwan): filler-induced granuloma after injection of a PCL-based collagen stimulator into the tear trough.

2022 (Taiwan): vitiligo associated with a PCL-based collagen stimulator filler.

Both share something worth noticing: they are the kind of problem that shows up late. Granulomas appear long after injection, and so do pigment changes. This is why an uneventful first week does not mean safety.

And they are hard to reverse. The absence of anything that dissolves the material matters here too.