Efficacy of Photobiomodulation Therapy in the Treatment of Pain and Inflammation: A Literature Review

The main objective of this literature review was to analyze the efficacy of photobiomodulation (PBM) therapy in subjects with chronic pain and inflammation and to evaluate the methodological quality of the collected literature. Searches were conducted in PubMed, ProQuest, Scopus, Web of Science, and PEDro for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from the last 5 years, in humans, in English, using keywords including low-level laser therapy, chronic pain, and inflammation. Risk of bias was assessed with the PEDro Internal Validity Scale (IVS) checklist. Eleven RCTs were included. Five studies showed that PBM positively influences chronic pain, and another showed similar effects but only short term. Two studies reported marked improvements in inflammation; one study showed no improvement in chronic pain and another no improvement in inflammation. Four studies demonstrated PBM benefits for acute pain. Methodological quality was high: six studies rated excellent and five good on PEDro IVS. PBM shows beneficial effects on chronic pain and inflammation, but more research is needed due to the limited number of RCTs.

Ana González-Muñoz, María Cuevas-Cervera, José Javier Pérez-Montilla, Daniel Aguilar-Núñez, Dina Hamed-Hamed, María Aguilar-García, Leo Pruimboom, Santiago Navarro-Ledesma