Figure 5: Decrease of postoperative pain during irradiation in the group with water-filtered infrared-A (wIRA) and visible light (VIS) and in the control group with only visible light (VIS) (abdominal operations, Study Heidelberg)
Pain was assessed using a visual analogue scale VAS 0–100; values are presented as minimum, 25%-percentile, median, 75%-percentile and maximum (box and whiskers graph with the box representing the interquartile range; from [4], adapted from [7], [37]). In 230 single irradiations with wIRA(+VIS) there was, without any exceptions, a decrease in the pain score between the start and the end of the 20 minute period of treatment, while pain scores remained unchanged in the control group (p<0.000001 for any single documented day as well as for all of the days taken together).