Background: Low-energy laser (LEL) treatment has been suggested as an effective and safe method to prevent and/or treat oral mucositis induced by chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy; however, it has not gained wide acceptance so far.
Materials and methods: We conducted two clinical trials testing the LEL technique: firstly, as a secondary prevention in patients with various solid tumors treated with chemotherapy who all developed severe mucositis after a previous identical chemotherapy and, secondly, as therapeutic intervention (compared to sham illumination in a randomized way) in patients with hematological tumors receiving intensive chemotherapy and having developed low-grade oral mucositis.
Results: We entered 26 eligible patients in the first study and 36 were randomized in the second study. The success rate was 81% (95%CI = 61-93%) when LEL was given as a preventive treatment. In the second study, in patients with existing lesions, the therapeutic success rate was 83% (95%CI = 59-96%), which was significantly different from the success rate reached in the sham-treated patients (11%; 95%CI = 1-35%); the time to development of grade 3 mucositis was also significantly shorter in the sham-treated patients (p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Our results strongly support the already available literature, suggesting that LEL is an effective and safe approach to prevent or treat oral mucositis resulting from cancer chemotherapy.