Optimal Laser Phototherapy Parameters for Pain Relief.

Background and objective: Studies on laser phototherapy for pain relief have used parameters that vary widely and have reported varying outcomes. The purpose of this study was to determine the optimal parameter ranges of laser phototherapy for pain relief by analyzing data aggregated from existing primary literature.

Materials and methods: Original studies were gathered from available sources and were screened to meet the pre-established inclusion criteria. The included articles were then subjected to meta-analysis using Cohen's d statistic for determining treatment effect size. From these studies, ranges of the reported parameters that always resulted into large effect sizes were determined. These optimal ranges were evaluated for their accuracy using leave-one-article-out cross-validation procedure.

Results: A total of 96 articles met the inclusion criteria for meta-analysis and yielded 232 effect sizes. The average effect size was highly significant: d = +1.36 [confidence interval (95% CI) = 1.04-1.68]. Among all the parameters, total energy was found to have the greatest effect on pain relief and had the most prominent optimal ranges of 120-162 and 15.36-20.16 J, which always resulted in large effect sizes. The cross-validation accuracy of the optimal ranges for total energy was 68.57% (95% CI = 53.19-83.97). Fewer and less-prominent optimal ranges were obtained for the energy density and duration parameters. None of the remaining parameters was found to be independently related to pain relief outcomes.

Conclusions: The findings of meta-analysis indicate that laser phototherapy is highly effective for pain relief. Based on the analysis of parameters, total energy can be optimized to yield the largest effect on pain relief.