Low Versus High Intensity Laser Therapy on Primary Dysmenorrhea

Summary

Primary dysmenorrhea constitutes a significant health, social and economic problems. It involves a broad spectrum of both physical and emotional manifestations with a prevalence that can reach 50 up to 91 % in young women . Furthermore, it compromises the most common gynaecological alternations and the major cause of women academic and work absenteeism which obviously reduces quality of life, daily activities and economic situation due to decreased working hours.

NSAIDs are the first therapeutic line for primary dysmenorrhea; however, they might be accompanied by some undesirable side effects, such as dyspepsia, headache and drowsiness .

Laser treatment is non-invasive, painless, and can be easily administered in primary care settings for a wide range of conditions. Laser treatment significantly reduces pain level in both acute and chronic painful conditions by increasing the production of endorphins.

Low intensity laser therapy (LTTT) as a physical therapy modality with variety of therapeutic effects. There are various researches concluded that it is a safe therapeutic modality for the treatment of dysmenorrhea .

More recently, the pulsed neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) , a form of high-intensity laser therapy (HILT), was introduced to the field of physical therapy. The use of pulsed Nd:YAG lasers with high peak powers (3kW) and wave length of 1064 nm has been increasing and is considered as a non painful and non invasive modality that can stimulate areas that can't be reached with the low power lasers with patients reporting more significant pain reduction . Studies have documented the anti-inflammatory, anti-edematous, and analgesic effects of Nd:YAG lasers, justifying their use in patients with pain issues .

In fact, the HILT program is effective and has a more prolonged effect in pain reduction, and improving QOL with effects lasting up to 12 weeks post-treatment .

There is limited literature regarding the clinical results of high intensity laser treatment for primary dysmenorrhea , this may be contributed to its high cost. So, this research is an attempt to add to the clinical knowledge in this field as it will investigate the difference between the effect of low and high intensity laser therapy on primary dysmenorrhea with the quality of life improvement being the main point of concern .

Conditions

• Primary Dysmenorrhea

Interventions

DEVICE

Low intensity laser therapy

It will be applied for Group (A), by a pulsed diode low intensity laser device (Endolaser 422 Cp 400, Enraf - nonius apparatus) (Enraf, Rootterdam, Netherlands). with a wave length of 905 nm, mean power output of 400 mWatt, frequency of 10000 Hz and dose of 300 J/cm² . Laser probe will be applied perpendicularly and directly with an irradiation time of 30 sec for each point

DEVICE

High intensity laser therapy

It will be applied for Group (B), by pulsed high intensity laser therapy with pulsed Nd:YAG laser produced by HIRO 3.0 devices (ASA, Arcugnano, Vicenza , Italy). The high intensity laser therapy apparatus used postulates (Nd:YAG), with pulsed emission of wave length ( 1064nm ), very high power peaks (3kW), high intensity obtained (up to 15,000 W/cm2), high level of fluency/energy density (510-1,780 mJ/cm), very short pulse duration (120-150 μs), low frequency (10-40 Hz), duty cycle of about 0.1 % and total energy of 880 J

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Cairo University

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

25 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-09-30

Primary Completion

2023-07-31

Completion

2023-08-31