Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy (PRP) Can be an Effective Alternative Osteo Treatment
March 4, 2013
Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) injections do work by treating osteoarthritis by actually healing and smoothing the joints. For the past two years I have had great success in my office doing these procedures. Even though insurance companies are still not covering these procedures, those that can afford them are benefiting.
And more and more physicians are doing PRP injections for osteoarthritis as well as soft tissue injuries, tenonititis, mucle and tendon tears and cartilage tears since a Level 1, double blind study was published recently (January 2013) in the peer reviewed journal called the American Journal of Sports Medicine. The study, “Treatment with Platelet-Rich Plasma is More Effective Than Placebo for Knee Osteoarthritis: A prospective, double-blind, randomized trial,” has backed up what practitioners have been doing and has convinced those skeptics of this treatment.
After doing this randomized trial where some got PRP and others got saline (salt water) and the PRP patients showed statistically significant improvement, the authors stated that platelet-rich plasma has specific growth factors that are therapeutic proteins that can indeed act in cartiledge repair and repair (healing) of osteoarthritic joints.
