Many women suffer from painful sex caused by vaginal atrophy following menopause. Millions of them are cancer survivors and can't take estrogen treatments to treat their symptoms. Many younger women who are breast cancer survivors also suffer from effects similar to menopause because of drugs, such as the anti-estrogen medication tamoxifen, that's used to keep the disease from recurring.

Until now, they had two choices: endure painful sex or abandon sex altogether. But now a minimally invasive in-office laser treatment called the MonaLisa Touch can rejuvenate their vaginas in only a few minutes. It's painless and has no side effects, and it uses the same carbon dioxide laser that has been used for years to revitalize skin in the face and neck.

Vaginal atrophy, which is also called atrophic vaginitis, occurs because of a decrease in estrogen, and symptoms include thinning, drying, and inflammation of the vaginal walls. The numbers of women who may be suffering in silence are huge: According to the National Institutes of Health, there are almost 46 million postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 80, and there are more than 2.8 million survivors of breast cancer.

The MonaLisa Touch, which has been recently approved for use by the FDA, uses a medical laser to deliver CO2 laser energy to the vaginal wall to stimulate the regeneration of collagen fibers in vaginal tissue. New collagen increases moisture and better lubrication, which restores the vagina to a state similar to before menopause.

The treatment consists of three 5-minute treatments six weeks apart with a follow up annual treatment.

Researchers from Stanford Medical Center and The Christ Hospital, Cincinnati, conducted a multi-site study involving 30 women with vaginal symptoms, such as dryness and painful sex, caused by menopause.

"All 30 patients experienced overwhelmingly positive and immediate results," said Dr. Mickey Karram of The Christ Hospital. "The women showed highly statistically significant improvement in symptoms – including dryness, pain, itching, painful urination and painful intercourse – after the first treatment. They experienced no side effects or adverse reactions and showed an escalation of progress with each subsequent treatment."

"I have been really impressed by the initial results of the MonaLisa Touch therapy for the treatment of vaginal atrophy in our study," said Dr. Eric Sokol of Stanford University Medical Center. "Physicians currently have a limited number of treatment options, and many patients cannot use standard therapies or find them unsatisfactory. So I think this will fill a very important medical need for a very common and debilitating problem, and it has the potential to become a preferred treatment approach for a lot of patients suffering from genitourinary syndrome of menopause."