22 new papers for your review; an RCT on OA knee, a systematic review of treatment modalities for neurosensory deficit after lower third molar surgery found LLLT to provide significant improvement, a review of transcranial LLLT for neurodegenerative diseases, laser biomodulation of normal and neoplastic cells (another comprehensive study by Farouk Al-Watban with very interesting results), a Laser vs LED study on skin flap viability, angiogenesis and mast cells (spoiler alert, LED wins), treatment of dermatitis in 10 koi carp with 980nm laser!, and yet another case of LLLT for burning mouth syndrome. As it happens, a customer wrote just a minute ago to say that his patient had rapid resolution of burning mouth that lasted 18 hours after the first LED treatment.
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Voted Low Level Laser Therapy LLLT / Cold Laser Literature watch for Dec 2011
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Voted World Health Organisation Bone and Joint Task Force Task Force support LLLT for neck pain
Results of the Bone and Joint Decade 2000-2010 Task Force on Neck Pain and Its Associated Disorders.
It is nice to see LLLT making it into mainstream medical recommendations.
Published in the journal Spine; a systematic review of the literature 1980 – 2006 on the use, effectiveness and safety of noninvasive interventions for neck pain and associated disorders. 139 papers admitted into this review.
CONCLUSIONS: For whiplash-associated disorders, evidence suggests that educational videos, mobilization, and exercises appear more beneficial than usual care or physical modalities. For other neck pain, the evidence suggests that manual and supervised exercise interventions, low-level laser therapy, and perhaps acupuncture are more effective than no treatment, sham, or alternative interventions.
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Voted The Lancet systematic review and meta-analysis of LLLT for Neck Pain
This landmark study establishes that there is now more evidence for the use of laser for neck pain than any other medical procedure. For comment and to hear an interview with the lead author click here: The Lancet publishes that laser therapy helps neck pain
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Voted APTA recommends LLLT for Achilles Tendinopathies
American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Clinical Guidelines recommend Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) for Achilles tendinopathies. The report says “Clinicians should consider the use of low level laser therapy to decrease pain and stiffness in patients with Achilles tendinopathy.” Hooray, it’s only been 20 years since Chukuka Enwemeka first published his tendinopathy research. It is unfortunate that the guidelines neglected to comment on the importance of treatment parameters, they incorrectly describe energy as “intensity” and failed to mention Tumilty’s systematic review which found that 55% of LLLT tendinopathy studies failed due to incorrect power density and / or energy delivered.
You can download the APTA paper here APTA-Achilles-Tendinopathy-Guideline-USA-2010.pdf
GET TRAINED
Understanding power density and energy is important for effective treatment. To get yourself trained click here http://www.thorlaser.com/courses
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Voted BMJ systematic review finds “strong evidence” for LLLT on Frozen Shoulder
The BMJ sports medicine journal (BJSM) published a systematic review of conservative and surgical interventions and found “strong evidence for the effectiveness of laser therapy” adding to the rapidly expanding list of authoritative journals endorsing LLLT.
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Voted International Association for Study of Pain finds “strong evidence” for LLLT
A guidance document on myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) published on the International Association for Study of Pain web site finds “strong evidence” for Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT). We have archived a copy here and you can find the original source here . Myofascial pain syndrome is often confused with fibromyalgia so it may be worth reading this blog to help understand the difference.
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Voted LLLT in the Lancet Top 20 Hit Parade
The paper by Roberta Chow, Mark Johnson, Rodrigo Lopes-Martins, Jan M Bjordal titled “Efficacy of low-level laser therapy in the management of neck pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised placebo or active-treatment controlled trials” (abstract here) reached number 17 in The Lancet top 20 most downloaded papers for 2010. The full top 20 list is here:
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Voted The Times newspaper (UK) feature on pain management gives LLLT a good mention
The Times newspaper (UK) feature on pain management gives LLLT a good mention.
Download PDF here: http://www.thorlaser.com/downloads/Pain-Management-feature-The-Times-UK.pdf
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Voted The Bottom Line – Your phototherapy is not the same as mine
Lilach wrote to me this morning (if you are a regular at LLLT conferences you will know her) and in the dialogue she referred to the “phototherapy community”. I had just downloaded 121 LLLT and other phototherapy papers for this monthly literature watch blog. I had to wade through 99 papers that were not LLLT in order to arrive at 22 that were. Many of those were phototherapy and I thought I should bring them to your attention:
Phototherapy for Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia
Phototherapy for Psoriasis and vitiligo (and many other skin problems)
Phototherapy for Seasonal Effective Disorder or depression
Phototherapy for Vitamin D deficiency
Phototherapy for jet lag and sleep disorders
and to a greater or lesser degree these are already somewhat accepted in mainstream medicine.
Why is it that, and why is LLLT not yet accepted ?
send me a short comment back below.
One word answers are acceptable.
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Voted Low Level Laser Therapy LLLT / Cold Laser Literature watch for Nov 2011
21 new LLLT papers for your review this month including:
- How to report LLLT beam & dose parameters
- Bisphosphonate osteonecrosis of the jaw (BRONJ)
- Rotator cuff tendinitis
- The effect of LED on a patient in a persistent vegetative state
- Two papers on herpes simplex
- A study on acneiform rash due to EGFRI
- LLLT for “coronally advanced flap adjunct” (a gingival surgical
procedure)
- Lymphedema Praecox
Continue reading
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Voted Low Level Laser Therapy LLLT / Cold Laser Literature watch for Oct 2011
28 new LLLT papers for your review this month, including three from the Hamblin stable at Harvard. First on this list (and one I co-authored) is an invited paper called the “The Nuts and Bolts of Low-level Laser (Light) Therapy“. It’s everything you need to know about the latest thinking on the mechanism of action, beam parameters, dose and where the research is going. Next from the Hamblin lab is a dose response study on cortical neurones and, guess what, once again: less is more. 810nm light (25 mW/cm2) on mouse primary cortical neurons induced a significant increase in calcium, ATP and MMP at lower fluences but decreased them at higher fluences. A beautiful biphasic dose response curve shows that increasing the dose beyond a certain point (3J/cm2 in this case) showed a decline from the peak effect at 10 and 30J/cm2. The third paper in today’s Hamblin trio compares pulsed and continuous wave 810-nm laser for traumatic brain injury in mice with significant benefits of 10Hz over 100Hz or CW. Whilst on the subject of dose, an RCT on perineal pain and healing after episiotomy showed that LLLT did not accelerate episiotomy healing, there was a small reduction in pain; however the laser was 15 mW and used for only 10 s per point, so this is not a surprise.
If you don’t know how much is enough, or how much is too much you better get trained. Details of worldwide training courses here.
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Voted Prof. Micheal Hamblin Harvard Medical School
Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) mechanisms and dose response.
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Voted LLLT and TRPV1
TRPV1 is a nonselective cation channel involved in nociception. At a pain conference in London I attended last week a speaker reported that about $ billion has been spent by the pharmaceutical industry on developing a new class of analgesics to block this protein. However there is a sided effect on body temperature (hyperthermia) making it unusable which is a shame as the potential benefits are huge read here on Wikipedia.
TRPV1 is new to me and I wondered if perhaps anyone had looked at the effect of LLLT on it and they have. A group in Korea have shown that Er,Cr:YSGG laser has an analgesic effect via TRPV1 inhibition. Well hooray for the Koreans, if they really have discovered Inhibition of TRPV1 with laser (and without hyperthermia), it could become another medical holy grail assailed by LLLT.