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What are the Benefits of Red Light Therapy?

Synthia L. Rose
Synthia L. Rose

Photodynamic red light therapy, a treatment for cancer, offers three primary benefits: short recovery time, few side effects, and the ability to annihilate malignant cells without harming normal body cells. Red laser light can also treat precancerous cells, as well as severely diseased cancer tissue that has progressed to the late stages of malignancy. This treatment is often used for throat cancer and cancer of the esophagus, and the treatment is minimally invasive, often making it preferable to radiation and chemotherapy. Singers and other professionals who rely on their voice especially appreciate that the therapy is unlikely to damage the quality of their voices.

The recovery time after red light therapy is less than a day. The operation lasts roughly three hours, is non-invasive, and allows the patient to leave the hospital immediately afterward. While radiation and chemotherapy may require repeated treatment over several months, leaving the patient weak and with a compromised immune system, this therapy only has one negative side effect, which lasts for less than 24 hours. Patients treated with red light become hypersensitive to the sun and burn easily. Wearing sunscreen will not prevent the burning, and most patients are advised to avoid direct sunlight for a day.

Individuals who are treated with red light therapy can burn quickly and need to wear a sunscreen with a high sun protection factor (SPF).
Individuals who are treated with red light therapy can burn quickly and need to wear a sunscreen with a high sun protection factor (SPF).

The benefits of red light therapy are a result of the laser light interacting with an injected drug, porfimer sodium, a liquid solution that responds to light and causes a chemical reaction that releases toxins to kill cancer tissue. The drug, which collects in cancerous tissue and turns it red, is injected into the patient’s body two to three days before treatment. The cancer cells are killed the moment the red light strikes the pigmented cells, igniting the release of a type of oxygen that is poisonous to the treated cancer cells only. The gentleness of the treatment means that a repeated surgery, if necessary for large tumors, can occur within two weeks.

Red light therapy may have fewer side effects than chemotherapy.
Red light therapy may have fewer side effects than chemotherapy.

Patients are sedated during this procedure. In addition to the laser, surgeons might use additional tools, such as scopes, so that they look into the body and confirm the location of cancer cells where the laser must be guided. One drawback of this therapy is that it may only be able to treat tumors that have a diameter no larger than 0.25 inch (0.64 cm). Red light cannot penetrate to great depths to treat larger tumors, so it can only treat superficial tumors and tumors that can be accessed with scopes.

Discussion Comments

irontoenail

@pastanaga - The two are related, you're right. Red light therapy is a slightly less intense version of the intense pulsed light therapy you probably had for hair removal.

It's used for quite a few things, not just for removing throat cancer. But I think it's still considered a bit controversial at the moment.

While it's undeniable that it does work with some things, with others, like pain relief, it's not quite as clear cut.

browncoat

I wonder if singers and performers are more likely to get throat cancer than the general population, or if it's just that they notice it more easily?

I would have thought they'd be more careful of their throats than most people, like not smoking or doing anything that could damage it.

On the other hand, I suppose it's more likely that someone in "show biz" will be hanging around people who smoke, or drinking a lot and so forth, so maybe they just give in to temptation.

And for all I know it actually causes stress on the throat over time, if you have to sing at concerts and things. In fact, it almost certainly does, so perhaps they do have a slightly greater risk of this kind of cancer.

pastanaga

It sounds like red light therapy is similar to laser hair removal techniques. I've had that done and it had the same sort of thing, where you had to avoid the sun afterward because your skin had increased sensitivity.

It probably works the same way too. Even though I had it done for hair removal, it targeted my freckles as well, and removed them I imagine that it's because it focuses on pigment, like this therapy can only focus on the small, superficial tumors.

If that's so, I can see why it would be considered a vast improvement over radiation or chemotherapy. It hardly affected me at all when I had the treatments done. Except in the wallet, of course.

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    • Individuals who are treated with red light therapy can burn quickly and need to wear a sunscreen with a high sun protection factor (SPF).
      By: Antonioguillem
      Individuals who are treated with red light therapy can burn quickly and need to wear a sunscreen with a high sun protection factor (SPF).
    • Red light therapy may have fewer side effects than chemotherapy.
      By: nebari
      Red light therapy may have fewer side effects than chemotherapy.
    • Red light therapy does not affect the immune system, meaning the patient can fight off opportunistic infections better than someone undergoing other treatments.
      By: DjiggiBodgi.com
      Red light therapy does not affect the immune system, meaning the patient can fight off opportunistic infections better than someone undergoing other treatments.
    • A patient will be sedated while receiving red light therapy.
      By: dacasdo
      A patient will be sedated while receiving red light therapy.