The Photobiomodulation Therapy or Low Level Laser Therapy and Acne
Photobiomodulation or the low level laser therapy can be found as well under the names of cold laser therapy or laser biostimulation. It represents an emerging medical technique in which exposure to low-level laser light can stimulate or inhibit cellular function leading to beneficial clinical effects.
One should not confuse the low level laser therapy with phototherapy or with more ambiguous terms such as laser therapy, which may however be used for describing other medical techniques.
The photobiomodulation technique represents the best combination of wavelength, intensity, duration and treatment interval; these choices aren’t simple and thus they are often attacked by controversies. However, photobiomodulation finds itself still at the beginning and thus it is still being explored.
Photobiomodulation’s clinical applications include treating soft tissue injuries, chronic pains and wounds. It is also used in nerve regeneration and some people believe that it is effective also in resolving viral and bacteria infections.
However, there is one clinical application of low level laser therapy that shows great promise: this is the treatment of inflammation, as the anti-inflammatory effect of location-and-dose specific laser irradiation produces similar effects as NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), but without potentially harmful side-effects.
In photobiomodulation doctors use LEDs and other such monochromatic sources; the laser average power is typically in the range of 1-500 mW, while some high peak power, short pulse width devices are in the range of 1-100 W with typically 200 ns pulse widths.
As we’ve said, we haven’t used yet this kind of brand new photo-techniques in fighting acne, but they are worth to mention.
Phototherapy techniques seem to be the next big thing in medicine and we will discuss a little bit later about their other applications.
Although this web site is only about acne, we consider it appropriate to describe these emerging techniques, so that we could find out more about them.