The effect of systemic versus local transcutaneous laser therapy on tension-type cephalea and orofacial pain in post-COVID-19 patients: A pragmatic randomized clinical trial.

Introduction: Orofacial pain and tensional cephalea were symptoms commonly reported in COVID-19 patients, even after recovery, and were considered chronic pain in these cases. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effect of the application of photobiomodulation with red and infrared lasers applied locally and systemically.

Methods And Analysis: For this purpose, individuals who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and have had a tension headache and/or orofacial pain for more than 3 months will be selected by convenience. The participants will be divided into two different groups: G1-photobiomodulation with red and infrared laser with local application on the pain points (808 nm and 660 nm, 100 mW, 6 J per point) and G2-photobiomodulation with red laser with transcutaneous application on the radial artery (660 nm, 100 mW, 30 minutes). All participants will be treated for a period of 4 weeks, with 8 application sessions. The effects will be measured by means of blood lactate level, Brief Pain Inventory, Visual Analog Scale (VAS), and Cephalea Impact Test. The data will be collected weekly before and after the treatment, and the following tests will be applied: Analysis of variance (ANOVA), Tukey paired t test, Kruskal-Wallis, or Wilcoxon, according to data distribution. α = 0.05 will be considered as the level of statistical significance.

Ethics And Dissemination: This study was approved by the Research Projects Committee of the Nove de Julho University (approval number 4.673.963). Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals and events for the scientific and clinical community, and the general public. It is registered in the ClinicalTrials.gov database with the number NCT05430776.