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Light Therapy Treatment Helps Burn Injuries Heal Faster

Praveen Arany, assistant professor of oral biology in the UB School of Dental Medicine, led the development of a burn healing protocol for light therapy. Credit: Douglas Levere

Therapy may improve future treatment for burns, which affect more than 6 million people worldwide each year.

Light therapy may accelerate the healing of burns, according to a University at BuffaloFounded in 1846, the State University of New York at Buffalo is the largest campus in the State University of New York system and New York’s leading public center for graduate and professional education. It is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. It is commonly referred to as the University at Buffalo (UB) or SUNY Buffalo, and was formerly known as the University of Buffalo.”>University at Buffalo-led study. 

The research, published in Scientific Reports, found that photobiomodulation therapy – a form of low-dose light therapy capable of relieving pain and promoting healing and tissue regeneration – sped up recovery from burns and reduced inflammation in mice by activating endogenous TGF‐beta 1, a protein that controls cell growth and division. 

The findings may impact therapeutic treatments for burn injuries, which affect more than 6 million people worldwide each year, says lead investigator Praveen Arany, DDS, PhD, assistant professor of oral biology in the UB School of Dental Medicine.

“Photobiomodulation therapy has been effectively used in supportive cancer care, age-related macular degeneration and Alzheimer’sAlzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.”>Alzheimer’s disease,” says Arany. “A common feature among these ailments is the central role of inflammation. This work provides evidence for the ability of photobiomodulation-activated TGF-beta 1 in mitigating the inflammation, while promoting tissue regeneration utilizing an elegant, transgenic burn wound model.” 

The study measured the effect of photobiomodulation on the closure of third-degree burns over a period of nine days.

The treatment triggered TGF‐beta 1, which stimulated various cell types involved in healing, including fibroblasts (the main connective tissue cells of the body that play an important role in tissue repair) and macrophages (immune cells that lower inflammation, clean cell debris and fight infection).

The researchers also developed a precise burn healing protocol for photobiomodulation treatments to ensure additional thermal injuries are not inadvertently generated by laser use. 

The effectiveness of photobiomodulation in treating pain and stimulating healing has been documented in hundreds of clinical trials and thousands of academic papers. The therapy was recently recommended as a standard treatment for pain relief from cancer-associated oral mucositis (inflammation and lesions in the mouth) by the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer.

Reference: “Accelerated burn wound healing with photobiomodulation therapy involves activation of endogenous latent TGF-β1” by Imran Khan, Saeed Ur Rahman, Elieza Tang, Karl Engel, Bradford Hall, Ashok B. Kulkarni and Praveen R. Arany, 28 June 2021, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-92650-w

Additional investigators on the study include Imran Khan, PhD, first author and staff scientist at the National Cancer Institute; Saeed Ur Rahman, PhD, assistant professor at Khyber Medical University, Peshawar; Elieza Tang, DDS, dentist; Karl Engel, senior field clinical specialist at Abbott; and Bradford Hall, PhD, staff scientist, and Ashok Kulkarni, PhD, senior investigator, both at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

Source: SciTechDaily