The Archives of Bone and Joint Surgery

The Archives of Bone and Joint Surgery

Intraarticular Injections of Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP)in the Management of Knee Osteoarthritis

Author
E. Carlos Rodriguez-Merchan
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery “La Paz” University Hospital, Madrid, Spain. And School of Medicine, Autonomous University, Madrid, Spain.
10.22038/abjs.2013.1730
Abstract
 
The clinical use of PRP therapy in the practical setting of orthopaedic fields is increasing partly because of the accessibility of devices that are used in outpatient preparation and delivery. Another reason is the strong advertisement of PRP procedures as the ultimate treatment and novel technology for knee problems by a few orthopaedic surgeons based on claims of abundant scientific evidence. Hence, PubMed articles related to the clinical use of PRP in knee osteoarthritis were searched using the key words: PRP, knee and osteoarthritis in order to study these claims. A total of 20 reports were found directly related to the topic. The aforementioned clinical studies suggest that intraarticular injections of PRP could have preventive effects against osteoarthritis progression. However, presently there is no clear evidence from well-designed clinical trials that intraarticular injections of PRP are efficacious in osteoarthritis. Therefore, at this time the efficacy of PRP requires more investigation, wherein better scientific studies should be performed that include high powered randomized controlled trials.
Keywords
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP)
knee
Osteoarthritis

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The Archives of Bone and Joint Surgery
Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
September 2013
Pages 5-8

  • Receive Date 08 July 2013
  • Revise Date 19 August 2013
  • Accept Date 21 September 2013