According to the finding, LLLT is applied to treat at least four categories of diseases including nervous system complications, skin and mucosal disorders, bone and joint disorders, and cancers. These four classes of diseases are tabulated in Table 1. We evaluated and studied the selected articles that have researched these categories of disorders.
Easetak Product Page
Researches in intracranial photobiomodulation have shown that the use of infrared or near-infrared light can promote cell repair.33 Near-infrared waves are capable of passing through the human skull and the cerebral cortex which could receive a small amount of energy.34 The abundant mitochondria present in neurons are the primary receptors for near-infrared and infrared wave energy. Subsequently, mechanisms such as increased ATP production, CMP activity and increased oxidative activation work together to prevent cell death during ischemic failure, brain injury, and neurodegeneration.35,36 This process can be mediated by increased expression of genes involved in the cell survival process, such as the production of antioxidant enzymes, heat shock proteins, and cell death-preventing proteins.37 Transcranial light therapy has been developed to increase neuron proliferation in the hippocampus following a stroke or ischemia.38
Trigeminal nerve neuralgia (TN) is the major cause of face and mouth pains.39 The pathogenesis of TN neuralgia is not well understood and high vascular pressure causes demyelination of nerves following pons entrance.40 LLLT could decrease acute neuralgia via mechanisms such as decreasing histamine, serotonin, and bradykinin and increasing acetylcholinesterase, aerobic metabolism, ATP, encephalin, and endorphins production.41,42 Lasers could significantly increase the pain threshold and stimulate the synthesis of endorphins.43 Limited studies have been designed to assess the effects of LLLT on TN analgesia treatment with controversial results.
Traumatic brain injury(TBI) &#; the other subject that is treated via LLLT &#; is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in young military staff or athletes along with accidents.44 Several cell and tissue interactions lead to inflammation and brain edema and cerebral perfusion. The combination of defects results in brain ischemia and diminishing oxygen and glucose transportation to the neurons. Membrane channel transportation changes together with voltage postsynaptic enhancement.45 Calcium rises inside the neurons with mitochondrial malfunction and apoptosis happens simultaneously in TBI.46
Primary lesions and dysfunctions of the nervous system may cause neuropathic pain. It seems that LLLT may cause the treatment of this kind of pain; however, there are controversies between different applications. LLLT is a suitable method for neuropathic pain treatment; different wavelengths of lasers which are reported in several studies revealed increased analgesia significantly.47-50 The importance of LLLT in the treatment of diabetic neuropathy was investigated due to the antioxidant and biomodulation effects of lasers as a non-pharmacological treatment.51,52 Another study carried out different mechanisms of LLLT in pain relief as inflammatory process modulation, excitation alteration, and endorphins secretion.53 Bradykinin reduction with the modulation of the inflammatory process according to the LLLT pain relief mechanism is reported through researches.54,55 The β-endorphin expression seems to be a secondary action of LLLT in analgesia.56 Red and infra-red laser effects on analgesia amplification have been reported with a controversy between two lasers.57,58 The density of LLLT energy seems to be an effective value in pain relief. However, there are some discrepancies between the results of the assessments.48,59
Burn with the thermal origin which is a traumatic injury could affect human organs.60 LLLT is a useful method for treating burning injuries, especially skin burns; however, there are some controversies between application parameters of LLLT in the treatment of skin burns. There are many factors causing skin burns, such as chemical, physical and biological factors, which lead to pain, infection, and even death.61 The mechanism of wound healing in cutaneous burns is the interaction between the cascade release of cytokines and the extracellular matrix and involves these steps: spontaneous and interdependent inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling.62 Early stages of repair are proliferation and edema and may modulate complications such as the reduction of leukocytes and macrophages, fibroblasts, and angiogenesis simultaneously.63 Those complications may lead to scar and tissue adhesions.64 Recent studies have shown that LLLT can be effective in the treatment of skin burns as a low-price and non-invasive treatment.65 The mechanism of laser action on biological tissues is mainly related to stimulating cytochrome oxidase releasing, and it activates intracellular cascade reactions and increases the intracellular and molecular synthesis and subsequently increases the synthesis of RNA and DNA which, in turn, increases cell proliferation and migration in the injured tissue restoration.66-68 Lab experimental researches revealed that LLLT increases fibroblasts proliferation and collagen synthesis along with tissue granulation. These cellular events resulted in the acceleration of wound contraction and re-epithelization.69-71 The study on laser therapy for wound healing has been the subject of researches since its inception and its first report was published in .66 In the following years, many studies were performed in this area and the upward trend of laser burn and wound healing methods was studied too; however, differences in the methods, including the wavelength and energy used and the power of radiation and duration of treatment in different studies, were significant.72,73 The 600-700 nm wavelengths have less penetrating power than the 700- nm wavelengths within the tissue.68 Researchers have used different wavelengths for LLLT.74,75 Some researchers have considered the 660 nm wavelength for the initial stages of skin wound healing and the 780 nm wavelength effective for the formation of tissue granulation.76
Recent investigations have revealed that LLLT could evaluate hair growth stimulation. Studies on hair loss of male and female cases, chemotherapy-induced alopecia and alopecia aerate have demonstrated the effectiveness of LLLT in hair re-growth. The first study about hair growth was published by Ferrando et al in .77 They used IPL photomodulation to remove unwanted hair but the results were paradoxically positive for hair growth. However, studies on the LLLT treatment of alopecia are limited in numbers of documents and the wavelengths from 600 to nm were in preference. Leavitt et al assessed the effects of a laser with the wavelengths of 635 and 660 nm and a combination of both on the hair growth of the forearm. The results revealed the positive effects of LLLT on hair follicle growth compared to the control group.78 In another study, it was revealed that evaluated laser devices could increase hair growth elongation on day 3 of treatment compared to the control group.79 The very low incidence of LLLT side effects made it safe to use for hair growth.80 In animal experiments, results revealed the positive effects of LLLT on hair growth for alopecia aerate AA),81 and chemotherapy-induced alopecia.82 On the other hand, King et al did not have positive results for AA treatment by LLLT in mice, as opposed to the results of a study by Wikramanayake et al.83 Clinical trials revealed the positive effects of LLLT on hair re-growth.84-90
Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is a chronic blistering disease with antibodies directed against keratinocytes.91 Management of PV is difficult. Steroid therapy is still the basic treatment of disease with some adverse effects.92 Various laser devices have been used to treat PV. There are some reports about wounds that are related to PV.93 Based on previous investigations the mouth is affected by PV. Lesions of gingiva and mucosa of mouth and the other parts of body are reported in the PV patients.94,95 The assessment of LED laser therapy of PV with a 660 nm wavelength in a continuous wave and 30 mW energy in 10 patients revealed the efficiency of LLLT in the treatment of PV ulcers.96
One of the complications in diabetes mellitus is long-lasting or non-healing skin ulcers of the foot and the results of treatments are not satisfactory for patients.97 LLLT as an effective and noninvasive tool could be seemingly manageable for a diabetic foot ulcer.98 Multifactorial occurrences such as peripheral neuropathy and arterial occlusive disorders may cause foot diabetic syndrome.99 As it is shown in Table 2, diabetic ulcers (DUs) could be classified according to Wagner and Armstrong ulcer classifications.100
Conventional treatments as wound cleaning, skin grafting, vasodilators, and antibiotics could be still unsatisfactory.101 LLLT has been introduced as a painless and noninvasive treatment without major side effects for DU treatment. Low-power lasers with low-energy radiation stimulate cell activity, but high-power lasers have adverse effects on cell activity, and in non-healing DUs, the application of lasers to stimulate wound healing has been recommended.102 The laser needle is a new method of laser acupuncture which its therapeutic effects are similar to manual needle acupuncture.103 A unique laser therapy mode determination to treat diabetic foot ulcers is not explained yet. Kajagar et al compared pulsed LLLT on 85 diabetic wound healing patients on the basis of wound size, duration of exposure and used energy in the surface of the wound (2-4 J/cm2 at 60 mW for 15 days). There was a significant ulcer reduction in LLLT compared with traditional treatment methods.98 Another review of wound treatments focusing on venous leg ulcers and decubitus ulcers claimed LLLT could not improve wound healing and suggested that researches should focus on molecular and cellular mechanisms of wound healing with more investigation in humans to find precise laser parameters and treatment protocols.104
This is a viral disease, which could not be treated completely and anti-viral drugs acyclovir, valacyclovir, and famciclovir could not eliminate the virus.105 Different kinds of laser therapy and several protocols have been proposed for the treatment of herpes labialis (HL) based on successful clinical trials recently. Different studies reported the wavelengths between 630 and 980 nm and power of 20 to 300 mW with radiation duration between 10 seconds and 15 minutes respectively for HL treatment.106 All the researchers reported that LLLT is an effective tool in the management of HL prevention without any side effects.
Early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer result in the survival of more than 82% patients in developed countries.107 However, more survived patients suffer from secondary lymphedema due to the following cancer therapies.108 Despite efforts to reduce breast cancer lymphedema (BCL) by treatments such as surgery or radiotherapy, BCL remained relevant.109 During the past few years, LLLT has been introduced as suitable noninvasive phototherapy for the treatment of BCL, with the wavelength between 650 and nm to be delivered into the target tissue to reduce inflammation and promote lymphatic vessel regeneration and lymphatic mortality reduction.110-112 LLLT was more effective than compression bandage for pain relief in BCL post-treatment 113. Based on previous studies infrared radiation (808 to 905 nm) is applied to LLLT of BCL post treatment (Table 3). The range of energy usage was 1.5 J/ cm2 to 2.4 J/cm2. 114.
Several types of related complications of head and neck cancer (HNC), which are treated via LLLT, are tabulated in Table 3.
Most of the patients with HNC treated by radiotherapy (RT) or chemotherapy (CT) suffered from orofacial and oropharyngeal complications.115 Most patients confront multiple complications, leading to a negative impact on their lifestyle.116 Supportive care for these complications should be considered in different stages of the disease. Photobiostimulation with various kinds of light energy as LLLT and LED and visible light has shown a promising efficiency for the treatment of HNC complications.117 Oral mucositis almost appears in all of the HNC patients treated by CT.118 Some investigations have claimed that photobiomodulation is efficient for oral mucositis, a complication that appears after HNC routine treatments.119,120 There are several complications resulted from HNC such as &#;Oral mucositis,121 dermatitis,122 dysphagia,123 hyposalivation and xerostornia,124 taste alterations,125 osteoradionecrosis,126 trismus,127 soft tissue necrosis,128 head and neck lymphedema,129 and voice alterations.&#;130 All of those complications could be treated by photomodulation (see Table 3). Oral mucositis affects patients with HNC, treated by oral CT from mild to severe conditions.131 ROS production starting cascade reactions leads to microvascular injuries and ECM alterations in mucositis.132 Different meta-analysis assessments revealed the efficiency of photobiomodulation in mucositis reduction and pain-relieving with different doses of light energy consumption.133 IR (630-680 nm) and NIR (780-830 nm) lights had the same efficiency for the treatment of mucositis.134
HNC patients treated by RT mostly have dermatitis. Radiotherapy leads to the release of inflammatory cytokines as interleukin I & VI and this process causes the development of edema, erythema and possibly ulceration.135 Radiation of the skin could damage basal epithelial cells and connective tissue vascular components. Photobiomodulation may reduce the severity of radiation dermatitis.68 Damage to the skin developed by radiation may be ameliorated by multi-wavelength photobiomodulation.136 In a review by Bensadon et al, the effects of the red laser diode cluster and the IR LED cluster on radiation dermatitis were evaluated positively due to reduction of pain and inflammation and also promotion of tissue repair after LLLT administration. However, more investigations were suggested to reduce the side effects of LLLT and the photobiomodulation treatment of dermatitis.137
Dysphagia is an impairment of swallowing and could be seen in patients with head and neck malignancy as a side effect of cancer therapy.138 Dysphagia is associated with inflammation, edema, and fibrosis.139 Photobiomodulation is a promising technique for dysphagia treatment.140 Dysphagia has different stages from 0 to V. According to references, treatment could be intraoral and extraoral photobiomodulation.141 Using an IR laser with a wavelength of 980 nm (Table 3), Mobadder et al reported the effectiveness of LLLT in cancer resulted from a dysphagia case in pre- and post-operative stages.141
Oral cancers may need different treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy or a combination of these techniques. Chronic side effects of an oral cavity may cause bone repair capacity to diminish.142,143 Osteoradionecrosis (ORN) means a condition that the irradiated bone be exposed into the oral cavity more than 12 weeks and this process occurs in the suppression of tumor recurrence or tumor necrosis in RT.144 There is no cure for ORN and only clinical control treatments as surgical debris removing, antibiotic therapy, and ultrasound could be performed.144-146 LLLT with increasing metabolism capacity, cell proliferation, angiogenesis and wound healing is a suitable method for assisting ORN treatment.147 LLLT also has analgesic effects and improves lymphatic flow.148 Riberio et al in a study analyzed ORN treatment by LLLT. The objective of the study was the stimulation of the affected area to homeostasis, leading to oral mucosa healing. Red light and IR lasers (see Table 3) were used for bone exposure and the affected jaw subsequently. LLLT improved the healing process of bone and accelerated the covering of bone with oral mucosa in most cases.149 Positive results of LLLT as an adjuvant therapy suggested for ORN treatment.
Lockjaw or trismus is a limited jaw range of motion. It may be caused by HNC. LLLT is an efficient tool to reduce pain, edema and inflammation without adverse effects to promote damaged tissue repairing.150 Petrini et al revealed the effect of LLLT treatment with the aid of an 890 nm (Table 3) diode laser on pain and edema reduction.151
Bone regeneration is accelerated by laser treatment in Wistar rats relative to the controls.152 Improvement of closed bone fracture healing in human wrist and hand via LLLT is reported by Chang et al.153
As it is reported, a low-level laser in combination with adipose&#;derived mesenchymal stem cells improves the initial phase of tendon repair.154 Based on the investigation by Badawy et al, laser therapy can be used to recover hand flexor tendon repair.155
Tezcan et al investigated the effect of LLLT on 34 patients with carpal tunnel syndrome. On the basis of this report, the LLLT strain ratio and the cross&#;sectional area of the median nerve in patients decreased after LLLT. They concluded that nerve regeneration and development of the vascular supply effects of laser therapy led to the improvement of patients&#; condition.156
Want more information on Semiconductor Neck Laser Instrument? Feel free to contact us.
Photo: Michael Hession
This comfortable, durable neck fan has enough battery to last most of the day&#;plus some color-changing lights, just for fun.
$30
$23 fromAmazon
(deal on pink or white)
The Gulaki Neck Fan is a simple but effective cooling device that sits comfortably around your neck, directing gentle wafts of wind up toward your head. With three speed settings and a ring of 72 air slots for the fan to exhaust through, it can cover everything above your neck without blowing directly into your face (which would be annoying).
Plus, you can hold down the power button and turn each end of the neck fan into a fun color-changing LED light show. Who wouldn&#;t want that?
It has one of the best fan-speed ranges we&#;ve seen. With three power settings, the Gulaki fan can go from a subtle breeze at 1.3 mph to a powerful gust at nearly twice that speed. It&#;s one of the most powerful fans we&#;ve tested, tied with our upgrade pick, the Torras Coolify 2S. By contrast, the fan on our also-great pick, the Egopp 1S Cool Down, maxed out at 1.3 mph.
It&#;s also especially easy to use. The Gulaki fan has only one large button, on the front right side to cycle through the fan speeds. The button is recessed just enough that most people should be able to find it by feel without having to remove the neck fan and look for the spot to press. Most of the other models we evaluated had small rectangular buttons, often hidden on the underside or back of the fan, that were difficult to locate and activate without our taking the fan off to look for them.
The fan&#;s streamlined style is both subtle and comfortable. It has a discreet design that doesn&#;t attract much more attention than if you were wearing a pair of over-the-ear headphones around your neck; in fact, several people mistook the Gulaki fan for a pair of Beats headphones when they saw it.
It weighs only about a half a pound. You&#;ll barely even notice it while wearing it, and its 8.5-inch diameter should allow it to comfortably fit around most necks without sticking to sweaty skin. It&#;s available in a variety of colors as well.
The rechargeable battery should have just enough juice to get you through the day. Like most of the fans we tested, the Gulaki fan comes with a 4,000 mAh lithium-ion battery that can last up to 16 hours or so, depending on the fan-speed setting. It&#;s a particularly good companion for a full workday, especially if you work outdoors.
It usually costs around $30, about the same as other, similar neck fans. Plenty of other brands sell nearly identical (or maybe even entirely identical) devices for around the same price&#;including the Penkou Portable Neck Fan, which we previously recommended as our top pick. Like those other models, the Gulaki fan doesn&#;t come with a warranty. But if it&#;s any consolation, our test unit was durable enough to survive several drops off a moving bicycle and onto the pavement. (Oops.)
Did we mention that it also has color-changing LEDs? Hold down the power button on the Gulaki fan, and the circle at each headphone-style rounded end illuminates in a fun, ever-shifting LED light display. Yes, it&#;s sort of silly. But so is wearing a fan around your neck. You may as well go all the way and have some fun with it. Unless you hate fun, in which case, you can just not turn the lights on. (Our previous top pick, the Penkou fan, looks and performs identically to the Gulaki model, minus the LED option. It doesn&#;t save you any money, though.)
Photo: Michael Hession
Neck fans in general can sound sort of annoying, but the Gulaki fan is the quietest model we found. In our tests, we measured the volume of the Gulaki fan at 46 decibels on the lowest setting and up to about 56 decibels on high&#;quieter than any other fan we tested, and comfortably below &#;normal&#; conversation levels. The noise isn&#;t particularly bothersome, either, even though the fan is essentially blowing straight at your ears. If you wear headphones with it on, as I did while walking or working, it&#;s basically unnoticeable.
That said, the volume of the fan at higher speeds can interfere with conversations a bit. I already have some auditory-processing problems to begin with, so sometimes it would take me a moment to realize that the problem was the fan, not just me. Keep it running on low, however, and you should be fine.
It is still a relatively low-cost neck fan. We hope that anyone shopping at the low end of the neck fan market is not bringing a discerning eye for high-quality craftsmanship. You&#;ll find no impressive feats of design or engineering here to celebrate. The Gulaki fan has tested well for us and outperformed other models in its price range. We&#;ve seen an uptick in quality since these devices debuted, but their longevity in general remains a question mark, and at this price, there&#;s a chance that the Gulaki fan&#;s components won&#;t last.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTFor more information, please visit Male Prostate Cold Laser Therapy Device.