Proc. SPIE 9309, Mechanisms for Low-Light Therapy (March 5, 2015)
Hakan Solmaz ; Murat Gülsoy ; Yekta Ülgen
Bogaziçi Üniv. (Turkey)
The use of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) for therapeutic purposes in medicine has become widespread recently. There are many studies in literature supporting the idea of therapeutic effects of laser irradiation on biological tissues. The aim of this study is to investigate the biostimulative effect of 809nm infrared laser irradiation on the healing process of cutaneous incisional skin wounds. 3-4 months old male Wistar Albino rats weighing 300 to 350 gr were used throughout this study. Lowlevel laser therapy was applied through local irradiation of 809nm infrared laser on open skin incisional wounds of 1 cm length. Each animal had six identical incisions on their right and left dorsal region symmetrical to each other. The wounds were separated into three groups of control, 1 J/cm2 and 3 J/cm2 of laser irradiation. Two of these six wounds were kept as control group and did not receive any laser application. Rest of the incisions was irradiated with continuous diode laser of 809nm in wavelength and 20mW power output. Two of them were subjected to laser irradiation of 1 J/cm2 and the other two were subjected to laser light with energy density of 3 J/cm2. Biostimulation effects of irradiation were studied by means of tensile strength tests and histological examinations. Wounded skin samples were morphologically examined and removed for mechanical and histological examinations at days 3, 5 and 7 following the laser applications. Three of the six fragments of skin incisions including a portion of peripheral healthy tissue from each animal were subjected to mechanical tests by means of a universal tensile test machine, whereas the other three samples were embedded in paraffin and stained with hematoxylin and eosin for histological examinations. The findings of the study show that tissue repair following laser irradiation of 809nm has been accelerated in terms of tissue morphology, strength and cellular content. These results seem to be consistent with the results of many researches previously published in literature and support the idea that LLLT has therapeutic effect on wound healing process.
