Is laser therapy effective for pain?

An abundance of scientific evidence for the effectiveness of laser therapy in treating pain was examined in a study just published in the Clinical Journal of Pain. This refers to low level laser therapy, also called 'cold laser' to distinguish it from 'cutting' surgical lasers. The authors state...

""To ascertain the overall effect of phototherapy on pain, we aggregated the literature and subjected the studies to statistical meta-analysis...Relevant original studies were gathered from every available source and coded. Articles that met preestablished inclusion criteria were subjected to statistical meta-analysis, using Cohen's d statistic to determine treatment effect sizes."

22 papers met their inclusion criteria and offered an overall mean effect size that was highly significant, leading to their welcome conclusion:

"These findings warrant the conclusion that laser phototherapy effectively relieves pain of various etiologies; making it a valuable addition to contemporary pain management armamentarium."