THOR Photobiomodulation Therapy Products & Training

I had a meeting with the Chief Exec of the UK’s premier cancer research hospital, last year. He was genuinely interested by my pitch about LLLT. He said I should meet his pain team to present data on Oral Mucositis (OM). Eventually a meeting was set and I gave my best to the Head of Pain Services. Lets call him Dr Fred. Dr Fred listened patiently then, when I had finished, he gave me some feedback: 1) he did not like the company logo 2) he accepts the mechanism of action but 3) LLLT achieves too many things and 4) he had to go to another meeting. A surgeon friend of mine offered to go persuade Dr Fred and they had two hour meeting. Dr Fred said he would pitch it to his team, but after a few weeks chasing for an update, he said that nobody was interested.

How can that be when (according to the article in this months literature watch by Rene-Jean Bensadoun and Raj Nair) there is no consensus on a single agent or agents that can be used either prophylactically or therapeutically to reduce severity or duration of oral mucositis, and yet four associations/agencies* either suggest or recommend LLLT for OM.

Could it be the case that they did not discover LLLT for OM so they are not interested? The good news is that there are three cancer hospitals in three different countries coordinating to run a multi centred trial with THOR lasers so maybe then we can get some interest.

* European Society for Medical Oncology, Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, International Society of Oral Oncology, U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and quality.

Tell me about your experience, leave a comment below.

I love introducing LLLT to an audience of doctors oblivious and innocent of its effects on tissue regeneration, inflammation and pain. At first, the response is that no therapy can do all of this (heal diabetic wounds, improve recovery from sports injuries, neck pain, osteoarthritis and neuropathic pain etc), then I explain the mechanism by which LLLT increases ATP and reduces oxidative stress. By the time I have finished, the final question is not “what is LLLT?” or “how does it work?” or “is there clinical evidence?” but “why is this not used everywhere throughout medicine?”.

The truth is that evidence is not enough. I am involved in the early stages of putting together an international multicentre clinical trial for a pathology that already has 14 RCTs behind it. What difference will one more trial make? The difference may not be the trial itself, but the eminence of the doctors / scientists and their institutions doing it. I am also involved in the early stages of fund raising for another trial that has considerably less clinical data behind it and will be far less ambitious in its scale but, I suspect, will make greater progress. Why ? The focus on political influence. It is not enough to do good science, not enough to address a big unmet need, not enough to influence key opinion leaders, you have got to get the political bulldozers in.

Watch this space…..