Laser phototherapy – still no names giving celebration
By Jan Tunér
After 50 years of use, there is still not a globally accepted name for the baby. Who is to blame? There are many culprits, from journals seemingly accepting any names, to individuals elaborating their own fancy names. Low level laser, Low power laser, low intensity laser, cold laser, low incident level laser, biostimulative laser, you name it. But this battle seems to be endless, so let us focus on another matter of terminology – that of the laser medium. The most commonly used laser mediums are HeNe, InGaAlP, GaAlAs and GaAs. But of course, there is no consensus. Some companies promote AlGaAs and AsGa, for some reason. And researchers using their equipment follow.
But there is an easy solution – just skip the lasing medium details. What counts is the wavelength, and how it was technologically reached is of little interest. So instead of writing “a semi-conductor gallium-aluminium-arsenide (GaAlAs) laser of 808 nm”, just write “an 808 nm laser”. Producing this wavelength with a different set of components may be possible, but not available on the LPT (laser phototherapy – oops, another controversial vocabulary) market.
There is one hang-up. The “hard laser” people use what they correctly call “diode lasers”. These are surgical lasers in the 810-980 nm range, generally. This is in contrast to Nd:YAG and Erbium lasers, having a different composition. The problem is that if a person has such a “diode laser” of 810 nm and a LPT laser of the same wavelength – they are both “diode lasers”. So a solution would be just to indicate wavelength and power. Anybody would realize that the intentions of using a 200 mW 810 nm laser and a 2 W 810 nm laser are different. And further to that, several “diode” lasers can be adjusted in power setting to reach 500 mW – then being used as a LPT laser.
I call for journal editors, researchers, peer reviewers, authors, educators and manufacturers to consider the Babylonian confusion into which they are making contributions.