Postoperative PRP injections may not significantly improve outcomes after ACL surgery
Key takeaways:
- Postoperative platelet-rich plasma injections may not be warranted for patients undergoing ACL reconstruction.
- The PRP group and the control group had similar functional outcomes and symptoms.
Patients who received postoperative platelet-rich plasma injections after ACL reconstruction did not report significant improvements in knee symptoms or function at 1 year compared with patients who did not receive PRP.
Researchers randomly assigned 120 patients (mean age, 29 years) who underwent ACL reconstruction to receive either postoperative PRP injections (n = 60) or no PRP injections (n = 60). According to the study, patients in the PRP cohort received three doses of intra-articular PRP injection at approximately 1 month, 2 months and 3 months after surgery.
The primary outcome measure was KOOS score at 1 year. Other outcomes included patient-reported outcomes, graft maturity on MRI and physical examinations.
Overall, primary outcome data were available for 114 patients (95%). At 1-year follow-up, mean KOOS score were 78.3 in the PRP group and 76.8 in the control group.
Researchers noted patients in the PRP group had significantly better KOOS sports subscale scores at 6 months and better graft maturity at 6 months. However, they found no other statistically significant between-group differences for any outcome at any other timepoint. In addition, four patients (6.7%) had pain at the injection site and three patients (5%) had knee swelling.
“On the basis of current findings, postoperative PRP injection should not be advocated in patients undergoing ACL [reconstruction] unless new evidence emerges,” the researchers wrote in the study.
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