Evaluation of analgesic effect of low-power He:Ne laser on postherpetic neuralgia using VAS and modified McGill pain questionnaire.
In order to investigate the efficacy of low-power He:Ne laser in treatment of pain, we irradiated 18 outpatients with severe postherpetic neuralgia.  The efficacy of the low-power laser treatment was evaluated using a four-grade estimation, visual analog scale (VAS), and modified McGill pain questionnaire (m-MPQ) after every 10 of as many as 50 irradiations.  The efficacy rate using a four-grade estimation at the end of 50 treatments was 94.4%.  VAS decreased from 6.2 before irradiation therapy to 3.6 after 50 treatments, and the degree of pain relief was reduced to 44.6% and correlated with the number of treatments.  The total numbers of words and the total scores of the m-MPQ decreased as the number of treatments increased.  No complications attributable to the laser therapy were observed.  These results suggest that repeated irradiation with low-power He:Ne laser is an effective and safe therapy for postherpetic neuralgia.
Department of Anesthesiology, Chiba University School of Medicine, Japan.
K
K
Iijima
N
N
Shimoyama
M
M
Shimoyama
T
T
Mizuguchi
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000698:Analgesia / Q000379:methods; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006371:Helium; D006562:Herpes Zoster / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D053685:Laser Therapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009356:Neon; D009437:Neuralgia / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods