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PRP injection did not affect return to play after hamstring injuries in study
AMSTERDAM — Despite the popularity of platelet-rich plasma injections among professional athletes, an award-winning study presented at the European Society of Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy Congress found that when compared with placebo treatment the platelet-rich plasma may not be effective when used in acute hamstring injuries.
“If you look at our results, we found no benefit of the PRP [platelet-rich plasma] on the time to return to play for our athletes,” Gustaaf Reurink, MD, said. “If you look at the re-injury rate for our athletes, we saw 16% of re-injury in the PRP group, and 14% of re-injury in the placebo group, which is not statistically significant. Also, on the re-injury rate, we found no benefit of the PRP injections.”
Reurink and colleagues received the award for the top paper at the Congress.
Gustaaf Reurink, MD, (left) received the Theo van Rens Best Paper Award at the Congress. He is shown with ESSKA President Matteo Denti, MD, (middle) and ESSKA Educational Secretary Pietro Randelli, MD (right).
Image: Rapp SM, Orthopaedics Today Europe
“Probably the most popular, new innovative treatment that has been introduced in the last decade is the injection of platelet-rich plasma,” particularly for muscle injuries, Reurink said.
Reurink discussed the process of obtaining PRP from whole blood and how it is conditioned into separate components of the blood.
“The product we are interested in is the plasma that has a higher concentration in platelets. These platelets are known, when they get activated, to release growth factors, and these growth factors are involved in the healing of the injury,” Reurink said.
Reurink and colleagues performed a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial on the efficacy of PRP in athletes after an acute hamstring injury. Hamstring injuries, Reurink said, are the most common muscle injury in professional athletes.
The study included 80 athletes with acute hamstring injuries confirmed on MRI who were randomized to either the PRP injection group or the placebo group, who received isotonic saline injections.
The athletes were given two injections each, one 5 days after the injury and another 5 days to 7 days after the first injection. Both the researchers and patients were blinded to the contents of the syringe and their group. To determine the efficacy of the PRP injection, the investigators analyzed the time to return to play during the 6-month follow-up. The secondary outcome was the re-injury rate within 2 months of return to play.
The median return to play in both groups was 42 days with a 16% re-injury rate in the treatment group and a 14% re-injury rate in the placebo group. The results for the secondary outcomes were not statistically different.
“Our conclusion and take-home message was that we found no benefit of PRP injections compared to saline injections in acute hamstring injuries,” Reurink said. – by Robert Linnehan
- Reference:
- Reurink G. Paper #AW11-1375. Presented at: European Society of Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy Congress; May 14-17, 2014; Amsterdam.
- For more information:
- Gustaaf Reurink, MD, can be reached at the Department of Orthopaedics, Erasmus Medical Center, Room Hs-104, PO Box 2040, Rotterdam 3000 CA, The Netherlands; email: g.reurink@erasmusmc.nl.
Disclosure: Reurink receives financial support, research or institutional support, miscellaneous non-income support, commercially derived honoraria, or other non-research related funding, and royalties from the Arthrex Medizinische Instrumente GmbH and the Royal Netherlands Soccer Association.