History of Laser Acupuncture: A Narrative Review of Scientific Literature

Laser acupuncture represents one of the youngest modalities in the field of acupuncture, having been used successfully in the treatment of various conditions since the early 1970s. This narrative review, conducted by Gerhard Litscher of the Medical University of Graz, Austria, offers a comprehensive analysis of the most important historical milestones of this innovative discipline. The research used the PubMed, Google Scholar, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases, analyzing 38 initial articles, of which only 7 were considered relevant to the history of laser acupuncture after rigorous selection. The development of laser acupuncture has its roots in ancient medicine, when Hippocrates already used heliotherapy on the Greek island of Kos.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the famous physician Sun Simiao, of Shanxi province, described the value of light therapy during the Tang Dynasty. The first laser was developed in 1960 by Maiman, based on the principles of stimulated emission described by Einstein in 1916. The Canadian Plog is recognized as the first to apply lasers to acupuncture points in 1973, developing detailed techniques and 17 clinical indications, including low back pain, insomnia, and headache. In China, the oral surgeon Zhou used laser acupuncture as anesthesia for dental treatments in 1997, irradiating the Hegu point (LI-4) with helium-neon laser for 5 minutes, performing more than 10,000 dental extractions with this technique.

In Russia, laser therapy studies began in 1964, with hundreds of publications between 1965 and 1972, with the work of Shchur and colleagues in the treatment of hypertension in 1975 standing out. The most significant milestones include the development of the first commercial laser acupuncture systems, the first controlled clinical studies, and the implementation of multichannel devices with laser needle technology in 2001-2002. This evolution culminated in the combination of laser acupuncture with photobiomodulation methods. In October 2018, during the 12th Congress of the World Association for Photobiomodulation Therapy in Nice, France, a consensus definition was established: 'Photonic stimulation of acupuncture points and areas to initiate therapeutic effects similar to those of needle acupuncture and related therapies, together with the benefits of photobiomodulation.' The PubMed database currently contains more than 1,000 publications on laser acupuncture.

China leads the world ranking with 274 scientific articles published, followed by Austria with 59 publications, many of them developed at the TCM Research Center in Graz. Recent studies using biomedical equipment that compared the effects of laser acupuncture and needle acupuncture demonstrated different patterns of brain activation, with laser acupuncture activating the precuneus, related to mood, in the posterior default mode network, while needle acupuncture activates the parietal cortical region associated with the primary motor cortex. The clinical implications are significant, as laser acupuncture offers a noninvasive and painless alternative to traditional acupuncture, being particularly useful in pediatrics, in patients with needle phobia, and in situations in which needle sterilization can be problematic. The technique combines the millennial principles of acupuncture with modern photobiomodulation technology, offering bioregulatory effects demonstrated through research in neuromodulation, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, cell biology, and vascularization.