Researchers found horse wounds did not heal faster with LED light therapy.| Photo: Courtesy Peter Michanek, DVM

Despite common claims that light-emitting diodes (LEDs), in the form of red light or infrared light, can improve healing times in equine wounds, Swedish scientists recently determined they had no positive effect in their experimental group.

“We have no competing interest, and our goal was not to show that this device works but rather to investigate if it works,” said Peter Michanek, DVM, of the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, in Uppsala. “That said, it would have been great if this had been an effective way of treating wounds in horses.”

No Effect on Experimental Neck Wounds

In their study, Michanek and his fellow researchers produced experimental wounds, 2 centimeters (3/4 inch) in diameter, on both sides of the necks of eight anesthetized, adult Standardbred horses. They randomly treated either the right-side or left-side wound of each horse with a commonly accepted commercial LED light therapy used for horse wounds and left the other side untreated. In that way, the horses served as their own controls