Laser therapy's role in the veterinary clinic

During a recent episode of The Vet Blast Podcast, presented by dvm360, guest Ryan McKenzie, DVM, US animal health clinical training manager for Indiba K-Laser USA, joined host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, to break down the science of photobiomodulation and its growing use in pancreatitis, feline lower urinary tract disease, and postoperative pain. He also shared the biggest misconceptions keeping today’s veterinary practices from investing in low-level laser therapy.

You can check out a portion of their interview here, and listen to the rest of it here!

Below is a partial transcript, edited lightly for clarity.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: For those [who] may be newer to laser therapy, can you give us a little bit of an overview of what K-Laser is and how it works in the veterinary setting?

Ryan McKenzie, DVM: Yeah, that's a great question, Adam. I appreciate that. So, K-Laser, we're a therapeutic laser company. We have offices in Europe and here. We're based out of Denver, Colorado…. It's funny, you mentioned there are a lot of changes, and I'd say there's a lot of terminology that's used interchangeably, too. So you might see low-level laser therapy, low-light laser therapy, high-intensity laser therapy, cold laser therapy—and what do all of these mean?

Sometimes I think that terms are used interchangeably when they're actually their own individual things. So what I like to do when we talk about laser therapy is stick with photobiomodulation, or PBM…. When we break that down into its parts, we have photo [light], we have bio [living tissues], and then finally modulation. So when we modulate something, we're exerting an influence on that. So putting that all together, what K-Laser is delivering is photobiomodulation.

We're using light therapy to influence living cells, and that's exactly what we're doing here. We have veterinary-specific devices here that are FDA cleared, as well as separate human devices that are FDA cleared as well.

Christman: We see it used quite a bit when we talk about pain management. But what are you seeing for more advanced or unexpected applications of laser therapy in animal health?

McKenzie: The really cool thing is that there's a lot of focus right now not just on musculoskeletal lesions or wound therapy but [also on] internal medicine conditions and outside-the-box types of thinking—pancreatitis, for example. We know how frustrating [pancreatitis] cases can be—the acute cases, the chronic cases—but laser therapy has really stepped up the game to be another adjunct in a multimodal way of managing those cases. Feline lower urinary tract disease...for those cats, the ability to provide fast pain control and an anti-inflammatory action is just phenomenal. [It’s] really useful [for] those guys in conjunction with traditional therapies.

Christman: I see it used a lot in postoperative care. Practices have used it and enveloped it into their postoperation pain management protocol for surgical cases or post cystotomies. Have you seen that, too?

McKenzie: Yeah, that's one of the more common uses…those incisional cases, [and] even dental extractions. It's a perfect time to do at least a single treatment because those animals are right there in front of you.

Christman: What about beyond the standard use cases? Any specific examples you can share with us about that?

McKenzie: Yeah, actually, I have 2. First, I'll say seeing is believing, and we live in a society—like it or not—of instant gratification. We want to see a change. Our pet owners want to see a change. So one thing I always encourage is to get before-and-after photos. The first thing that comes to mind would be that animal coming in for a hot spot. Maybe it has atopic dermatitis. I'm looking down at my golden retriever right now, and every time she starts to scratch, I'm thinking, "Oh no, is this the beginning of something?" But what I would say is get those before-and-after photos. To really see the difference, we clip an area, do a laser therapy session, and just a couple of hours later, you can see that difference.

The more chronic conditions where I've seen just a tremendous impact are those cats with chronic gingivostomatitis. Traditionally, the therapy has been to extract those teeth, but when laser is used as an adjunct to treating these cats—we have laser therapy, interferon, [and] stem cell therapies now—the dramatic difference that I've seen in cats with that horrid gingivostomatitis where they can't eat, they're drooling, they have such a hard time...those before-and-after photos have been really monumental. We actually have a study going on right now in Europe looking at laser therapy for cats with chronic gingivostomatitis. I'm really looking forward to the results of that study.

Christman: What about some misconceptions? I know there are some big misconceptions or hesitations that veterinarians may have in investing in laser therapy. How do you address those?

McKenzie: A fantastic question. I think the biggest thing that I've heard—and I throw myself under the bus, I was one of these practitioners—I tended to think of laser therapy as a niche. It was "nice to have." It was one of those things that I forgot about. This machine was collecting dust in the practice, and by the time I thought about using a laser, it was too late in many cases. I was more reactive than proactive.

Being proactive...I think that sometimes that is forgotten. The other thing, getting back to it being a niche market, there's the belief that, "I'm never going to see an ROI [return on investment] on this because I…can only treat a certain number of cases or these certain conditions." When, in fact, anything that has "-itis" in it, I like to say, laser therapy may benefit those cases. We think of skin, for example. These are cases we're seeing every single day. We don't have to go out and search. We don't have to look at our practice software and run a report to go and search for these things. We just need to remember that it's not necessarily a niche, and those cases are coming in.

As you're using your laser—even once a day, twice a day—you can see a really quick ROI on that as well. We have a number of hospitals that have purchased one of our lasers [and are paying] it off in 6 to 12 months. So, it's really a great investment for your hospital, but also for your patients as well.

Want to listen to the full episode? You can check it out on dvm360.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts!