Laser acupuncture may not be as effective as physiotherapy or occlusal splint for treating pain associated with temporomandibular disorder.
In the process to understand the effectiveness of Laser acupuncture on Temporomandibular disorder, a systematic, network meta-analysis review was carried out across 11 electronic databases. Randomized clinical trials that primarily evaluated Laser acupuncture for Temporomandibular disorder treatment were located, and these studies reviewed by assessing the risk of bias using the RoB 2 tool. The network meta-analysis was conducted on the MetaInsight platform, where the reference outcome was pain intensity and counseling. Five studies evaluated pain intensity in the process, with differing risk levels.
The results of this analysis suggest that Laser acupuncture has reduced effectiveness when compared to physiotherapy or the use of an occlusal splint. The ranking of these treatments in order of effectiveness placed physiotherapy first, followed by the occlusal splint, then Laser acupuncture, counseling, and finally craniopuncture. It's important to note that despite this ranking, the overall certainty of the evidence was adjudged to be low to very low.
