Swiss journal “GanzheitsMedizin” (Holistic Medicine) 15, 191 – 1994 (2003), © Publishing house “Verlag für GanzheitsMedizin”, Basel, www.ganzheitsmedizin.ch


Acupuncture with Laser Needles –a Forward Looking Innovation

Scientific symposium organized by the Swiss Medical Society for Auricolomedicine and Acupuncture (SÄGAA), University of Zurich, March 29th, 2003

More than 150 physicians and dentists from all over Switzerland interested in acupuncture came to Zurich to follow an invitation by the Swiss Medical Society for Auricolomedicine and Acupuncture (SÄGAA). Subject matter of the symposium was a forward-looking innovation in the field of acupuncture: a method for an absolutely painless acupuncture treatment using state-of-the-art laser technology.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) represents an independent medical conception which has been developed by many scholars in China for a period of 3,000 years. The rational approach of TCM is complementary to the more qualitatively and materially oriented orthodox medicine in the western world. TCM is composed of several branches which are connected with each other by an interdisciplinary conceptual model.

Apart from a vast number of diagnostic methods such as pulse and tongue diagnostics, TCM therapy can be split into three branches:

external therapy (acupuncture),
internal therapy (drugs) and
health prophylaxis (e.g. nutrition, Qigong, Taiji).

In the western world, body acupuncture has become the most established and most frequently used TCM method says Dr. med. Sandi Suwanda, president of the Swiss Medical Society for Auricolomedicine and Acupuncture (SÄGAA) in his introductory speech. This therapy is traditionally carried out with very thin steel needles used for stimulation of the acupuncture spots, following special rules and adopting a special technique. The effects achieved are to be found in several forms: in the form of local effects, remote effects, effects along meridians, effects reaching beyond the treated region, effects on the associated organ, on other meridians, on the functional circuit or in the form of general effects.

Acupuncture is known for its enormous success especially in the field of pain therapy. Mr. Suwanda defines pain as a blockage of the energy flow and acupuncture, accordingly, as a competing stimulus blocking the transmission of pain signals.

Also discussed were the side effects caused by acupuncture which are reported in the literature to be approx. 7 % (Gerac Study: www.gerac.de). Out of these side effects, approx. 3 % are due to pain caused by pricking the needles and approx. 3 % to haematomas following the needle prick.

Laser Needles – an Innovation in Acupuncture

Laser needles are special laser-permeable optical guides (placed vertically on the skin) which generate a needle-equivalent, but painless stimulus due to their high optical power density and, thus, allow a simultaneous treatment of up to eight spots in the sense of traditional Chinese acupuncture and/or classical needle acupuncture. This Laserneedle® technique is a new and forward-looking, non-invasive method for the optical stimulation of acupuncture spots.

The inventor of the laser needle technique and the associated equipment is the physicist PD Dr. Detlef Schikora from the University of Paderborn who acquainted the participants in the symposium in a clear and understandable form with the physical principles of modern laser technology. Schikora underlined among others that light having a wavelength between ca. 300 – 800 nm won’t be absorbed by water, i.e. no heat will build up. This is an important fact because the body’s tissue consists to more than 90 % of water. In other words: The laser of the Laserneedle® system which is working with a wavelength of ca. 780 nm is not leading to a thermal stimulation of the tissue where it is placed, stimulation is solely based on an electronic impulse (interaction of photons and the ionic channels of the cell membrane). Such a vegetative stimulus at the acupuncture spot leads to specific cerebral effects which can be clearly measured using complex methods (Doppler Sono-graphy, Infrared Spectroscopy).

Acupuncture has been officially approved by FDA for the therapy of pain and nausea in 1998. Therapeutic application of acupuncture has successfully extended to many other fields of medicine in the period following, but it was scientifically accepted only seldom. This is due, above all, to the fact that there is rarely a possibility of conducting placebo-controlled double-blind studies. Tests, for instance, with so-called “placebo needles” did not lead to satisfactory results. The introduction of the Laserneedle® technique will now allow the completion of placebo-controlled double-blind studies in the field of acupuncture, says Schikora proudly.

Peripheral and Cerebral Effects Verifiable

Using most modern biomedical techniques, it is now possible to objectively quantify peripheral and cerebral effects of acupuncture. Prof. Dr. Gerhard Litscher from the University of Graz introduced the methods developed and used at his institute, the Institute for Biomedical Research in the Field of Anesthesia and Intensive Care: Thermography, Laser Doppler Flowmetry LDF, Multidirectional Transcranial Doppler Sonography TCD and Near- Infrared Spectroscopy NIRS.

In a direct comparison with needle acupuncture and verified using lasered placebo spots, Litscher could prove that Laserneedle® stimulation for instance at the acupuncture spots of the hands and feet and around the eye is able to cause specific and significant changes in microcirculation and the temperature of the skin surface (peripheral effects) as well as of the speed of blood circulation in the brain (cerebral effects) (measured by way of simulta-neous and continuous registration of blood circulation speed in A. cerebri posterior and A. cerebri media in healthy test persons). These effects have similar dimensions (difference ≈ factor 2) like the effects caused by manual needle acupuncture. Scientists suppose that the basic mechanisms of signal activation and transmission could be similar for both acupuncture methods.

Success in Sports Medicine

Who does not know it – the tennis elbow which is, as everybody knows, not always a consequence of a tennis play. Prof. Dr. Dr. Winfried Banzer from the Institute for Sports Medicine at the University of Frankfurt outlined with the help of the tennis sport the broad range of possible injuries and demonstrated, at the same time, promising fields of application for laser needle acupuncture. Not the tennis professionals are really taking the highest risk of injuries, but rather the amateurs and the players in the field of mass sports, because the latter can, as Banzer says, not good enough evaluate their abilities and, thus, the individual stress for their ankle joints, Achilles’ tendons, knees, shoulders, elbows and the spine. Distortion traumas of the ankle joints constitute e.g. 20 % of all injuries suffered during tennis. 10 – 50 % of all tennis players have spine problems with distinct pain symptoms, mostly caused by extreme combinations of extension and rotation movements. Equally often, tennis players are suffering from the tennis elbow (Epicondylitis radialis humeri) with its inflammatory component which also plays a major role in case of extensive overstrain of the Achilles’ tendon (tendinitis, peritendinitis). In an case, underlines Banzer, therapy must start as early as possible. Acupuncture should be carried out several times a day over a longer period of time. And this is a fact where traditional needle acupuncture makes problems – it won’t be practicable because of the large number of pricks.

In general, acupuncture is used in sports medicine for acute and chronic inflammations, for wound healing, for accompanying rehabilitation measures and, above all, in the field of pain therapy.

Success in Dentistry

Even dentists are more and more discovering possible applications for acupuncture, as Dr. med. dent. Konrad Borer, practising dentist from Reinach, reported on the symposium in Zurich. According to him, important fields of application for laser needle acupuncture are postoperative pain, neuralgias, sedation of anxious patients and patients with retching problems. Even a local treatment directly carried out in the area of the teeth is very promising. However, a broader application of this method is still slightly restricted as the adaptors required for the optical laser guides won’t be available before summer 2003. Borer finally referred to current negotiations between SÄGAA and the health insurance institutions. An agreement on the compensation for acupuncture treatment carried out by dentists seems to be possible.

Laserneedle® Stimulation Live Experienced

The participants in the symposium could live experience how the Laserneedle® technique is applied and functions. A participating colleague who has been suffering from a painful shoulder arm syndrome which did not respond so far to a physiotherapy carried out for several weeks, sought, with confidence, therapeutic care from Dr. Suwanda. Dr. Suwanda discovered the problem after a short but very professional diagnosis, identified the relevant acupuncture spots and placed the laser needles. After 20 minutes of treatment, the patient was again able, to his own and the audience’s astonishment, to move his arm free of any pain.

Receiving much applause, Dr. Suwanda expressed his thank to all persons for their participation and, above all, for the live discussion about the lectures delivered, referred to the comprehensive advanced training program offered by the Swiss Medical Society for Auricolomedicine and Acupuncture (SÄGAA) (www.akupunktur-tcm.ch/saegaa) and finally expressed his thank to the company LASCO Medical AG/Basel the financial support of which made this symposium possible.

For further information about acupuncture treatment using the

LASERneedle technique see www.laser-needle.com

Report and photos:

Dr. Stefan R. Becker, Basel