Research

The body of research continues to improve both in quality and quantity, but unequivocal endorsements from application-based reviews are few and far between despite hundreds of significantly positive studies in total.  LLLT has multiple treatment parameters and the research on its effectiveness has been multi-discipline, clinician-led and geographically diverse using different languages. With this background, it is perhaps inevitable that work undertaken before widespread internet use suffered from inconsistency in reporting resulting in some confusion over dosage and a lack of replicated studies for particular applications. Some early work also includes treatment protocols now known to be incorrect but which can recur in later reviews.

As internet technology reveals the scale of the international body of work, this plus the strong in vitro science and the efforts of a number of committed researchers, has contributed to the fact that laser therapy research is now taken seriously and increasingly included in treatment reviews. As has always been the case, different countries still have different levels of acceptance in different fields, but the direction of travel has been towards wider understanding and acceptance.