Evaluation of photobiomodulation effect on cesarean-sectioned wound healing: a clinical study

The effects of low-level laser on the wound healing and burn injuries have been previously examined to demonstrate some satisfactory results. Despite there are a few articles available to study photobiomodulation (PBM) effects on the pain relief of cesarean sectioned wound, however no systematic examination has been carried out so far regarding its healing. Here, the aim of this clinical study was to evaluate PBM effect on the cesarean-sectioned wound healing. PBM effects of semiconductor lasers are investigated at 658 and 660 nm with 100, 150 and 350 mW output powers on 40 patients. Due to the global increasing number of cesarean sections, we have decided to investigate the effect of laser as a reliable technique to recover the wounds fast. We considered women as the target group who had their first delivery giving the birth of their children by cesarean section. We selected patients are who treated by laser therapy using indium gallium aluminum phosphide (InGaAlP) semiconductor linear scanning type with beam cross section of 12 cm² and the output power of 100 mW at 658 nm exposing a therapeutic dose of 2 J/cm². The purpose is to accelerate the healing process of the wounds after delivery as an intervention group against the people who chose the conventional methods (using ointments, pills, etc.) to heal their cesarean sectioned wounds as the control group. Regarding the wounds of these two groups, the questionnaires were filled by patients to assess the severity of pain from visual analogue scale (VAS) based on the healing of wounds from redness, edema, ecchymosis, discharge, and distance between the two edges of the wound (REEDA) scale in the early hours after surgery and the post-treatment follow-up on the third, seventh, and the tenth days. The data collected by these questionnaires were analyzed using statistical package for social science)SPSS( as a statistical software to give out the comparative histograms. This study reports a clinical examination of PBM under intervention group of 40 patients ranging 18-40 years old with body mass index (BMI) of 29-36, during post-cesarean surgery to elucidate successful healing of the wounds and scars against conventional methods which considered as control group. Comparison of mean REEDA scores on the third day (p = 0.035), seventh day (p = 0.03), and tenth day (p = 0.02) after delivery exhibits that the two groups benefit a statistically significant difference with each other. For instance, the mean wound healing score in the intervention group was almost half of the mean wound healing score on the tenth day in the control group (1.09 ± 0.586 vs. 2.25 ± 0.422). The post-cesarean follow-up indicates that the patients treated by the laser therapy (intervention group) encounter better recovery than the control group.