Dr. Scott Sigman, an orthopedic surgeon in Massachusetts, recently came up an idea to use laser treatment to treat COVID-19 symptoms, and it seems to be working.
Specifically, Sigman ran a study to see how laser treatments could work on COVID-19 symptoms, and it looks like it works out, according to WCVP-TV, a Massachusetts news station.
The novel coronavirus creates a cytokine storm within the body, which then leads to inflammation in the lungs, according to research from the National Institute of Health.
- “I’m thinking to myself ‘The cytokine storm, what is it? It’s this crazy inflammation.’ What if we could take the laser, which worked so well on the musculoskeletal stuff and try it on the lungs?” Sigman said.
So Sigman had five patients suffering from COVID-19 symptoms receive laser treatment — called Photobiomodulation Therapy (PBMT) — for 28 minutes a day over four days.
One patient saw promising results, which encouraged Sigman to keep trying.
- “I’ll never forget it. We saw the pulse oximeter increasing immediately as the treatment was going. He was breathing better and he asked for a strawberry milkshake. I was like, ‘Oh my God, maybe we’re on to something here,’” Sigman said, according to WCVP-TV
The results of his work were then published in the Journal of Inflammation Research,
The study showed various results. For example, those who were treated with laser therapy needed less time to recover from COVID-19 — only staying in the hospital for seven days. The group who didn’t get the laser treatment needed 12 days, according to a press release on the study.
“Even with the COVID-19 vaccines, COVID-19 is not going away and there is a continued medical need for safe and effective COVID-19 treatment options. I hope the positive results from this study will encourage others to consider PBMT as an adjunct treatment option and support additional clinical trials with the use of PBMT.”