Sensory and pain threshold characteristics to laser stimuli.

The clinical applications of thermal sensory and pain thresholds have been very limited due to large intra-individual variations. In the present paper CO2 and argon lasers were used as thermal stimulators, and the different factors (stimulus parameters and skin conditions) affecting the thresholds are described. The intra-individual variations obtained in sensory (9.3%) and pain (4.3%) thresholds were very low, which suggests that the method can be applied for clinical purposes.