References
Low level light therapy (LLLT) for the treatment and management of dental and oral diseases
From Volume 41, Issue 9, November 2014 | Pages 763-772
Article
In 1967, Dr Endre Mester at Semmelweis Medical University in Budapest, Hungary, attempted to determine if the newly developed laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) ‘ray of light’ caused cancer. In his studies, he shaved the hair from the backs of mice and subsequently exposed one group of animals to a low-powered ruby laser while the other unexposed group was used as the control. Instead of the treatment group developing cancer, as he had predicted, the hair on the treated mice grew back more rapidly than in the unexposed animals. This effect was subsequently described as ‘laser biostimulation’ and this work has subsequently underpinned thousands of research papers, and generated significant interest from NASA and the US Navy. At present, this field is generally termed Low Level Laser (or Light) Therapy (LLLT), phototherapy or photobiomodulation. The published data currently aims to describe its mechanism of action, the downstream physiological effects and its clinical benefits as demonstrated in both randomized clinical trials and in systematic reviews.1,2,3
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