Platelet-rich Plasma Therapy
for Back Pain: Promise or Hype?
George Rappard, MD
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a
potentially promising biologic therapy that has found itself in great demand
recently, fueled by success stories of celebrity recipients and physician
willingness to engage in this new therapy.
Demand has also fueled, quite appropriately, scientific
investigation. As a result PRP finds
itself in the position of being both highly sought after and also highly
scrutinized. It is also widely available. As a result, it’s relatively inexpensive and
easy to produce. While PRP holds substantial
promise; demand, availability and adoption should keep pace with scientific
validation.
PRP has been in the news and the internet
quite a bit. A virtual who’s who of
well-known athletes such as Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, Cliff Lee, Kobe Bryant
and Rafael Nudal have all had PRP treatments.
PRP has been endorsed by the NBA, NFL and MLB. This sports celebrity A-list has naturally
fueled demand by prospective patients willing to pay cash for the high end
treatments that professional athletes have access to.
PRP is very simple in composition and
collection. PRP is a reversal of the
normal 93%: 6% ratio of platelets: red blood cells (RBC). PRP is also concentrated. While the normal platelet concentration in
plasma is 200,000/ul, to be efficacious PRP is concentrated by at least a
factor of 4 (1). The PRP is produced by collecting a patient’s
own blood through a large bore needle so as not to denature the platelets. The blood is placed in an FDA approved device
and centrifuged. The blood is then separated
into platelet poor plasma, RBC and PRP.
Roughly 30cc’s of blood will yield 3cc’s of PRP. Because PRP isnot heavily processed, it’s not
a drug. While the devices that
concentrate it are FDA regulated, its human use is not.
PRP’s contents and potential mechanisms of
action are far more complex than its production and composition. Platelets contain alpha granules that can
release a host of biologically active substances, including IGF-1, TGF, VGEF,
PDGF, EGF and Vitranectin. These factors
are involved in cell aggregation, cellular proliferation, angiogenesis and
proteoglycan and glycosamine synthesis.
Platelets also contain dense granules rich in Adenosisne, Seratonin,
Histamine and Calcium. These molecules
are felt to be cytoprotective, increase vascular permeability and vasodilation
and effect cellular migration and remodeling.
In order for platelets to release the biologically complex contents of
their granules they have to be activated.
Naturally occurring in-vivo activation is mimicked by activating
platelets with thrombin, +/- Calcium chloride.
At least one author has investigated the activation of platelets in PRP
with autologous serum (2).
PRP has been a focus of scientific
study. Currently, clinicaltrials.gov
lists 94 ongoing research studies. A
search of PRP therapy on PubMed lists 2,385 citations. This suggests that science may be catching up
to demand and availability in some new and emerging applications of PRP. PRP has been studied in the areas of wound
healing, epichondylitis, plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinopathy, total knee
arthroplasty, rotator cuff injury and non-healing long bone fractures, with
mixed results. PRP has been found to be
efficacious for the treatment of non-healing skin wounds (3; 4). In a small, non-randomized study, PRP was
shown to be effective in treating epicondylitis, a painful condition of the
elbow (5). More recently, a large randomized trial
presented at the 2013 American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery Annual Meeting
validated the effectiveness of PRP in treating epicondylitis, or tennis
elbow. The randomized trial enrolled 230
patients and is the largest study to date on PRP. 84% of patients treated with PRP met with
success (6). A small pilot study showed potential
effectiveness in treating plantar fasciitis, a painful condition of the foot (7).
The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons has tackled the interest in PRP by
publishing a series of reviews in the Academy bulletin, AAOS Now. PRP was reported to not be effective in the
treatment of rotator cuff injuries in the shoulder or anterior cruciate
ligament injuries of the knee (8; 9). PRP
was found to be a promising therapy for non-healing long bone fractures and the
treatment of Achilles tendinopathy of the ankle (10; 11).
The use of PRP for the treatment of back
pain has not been well studied clinically.
A PubMed search reveals no cited
studies for the use of PRP as an injection for painful lumbar facet joints or
sacroiliac joints, yet a quick Google search reveals that there is no paucity
of practitioners willing to perform these injections. Similar results were noted for PRP injection
of spinal or sacroiliac ligaments.
PRP has been studied in the lumbar disc,
though this area remains highly investigational. A search of clinicaltrials.gov reveals 1
human study-not enrolling patients however.
Animal studies have shown promise.
Gullung at al studied the effects of PRP on degenerative discs by
studying its effects on the L4/5 discs of Sprague-Dawley rats using a 21 gage
needle disc injury model (12). The investigators found that the PRP treated
discs had a significantly improved disc height over controls. Histological analysis showed that there was
preservation of disc architecture compared to controls. Additionally, on MRI analysis there was inproved
disc fluid content. The authors
concluded that PRP may confer protective and even regenerative effects in this
animal injury model. Obata et al used a
disc puncture model to study the effects of PRP on rabbits (2). The authors found that the PRP treated
animals had significantly increased disc height over controls and significantly
increased chondrocytes seen in the injured discs on histological analysis. No difference was seen in T2 MR analysis of
the discs between treated and sham groups.
Lastly, Chen et al studied the use of PRP in a chymopapain disc injury porcine
model (13). In the PRP group an increase in mRNA involved
in chondrogenesis and matrix accumulation was noted. Increased disc height was also noted over
controls.
The only area in spine where PRP has been
extensively studied in humans is in its use as an adjunct to promote fusion in
surgery. Here the anticipated results,
based on the bioactivity of PRP, were not always reproducible. 2 studies of patients undergoing lumbar
fusion surgery have found an increased non-union (poor bone healing) rate in
patients treated with PRP and bone graft vs. bone graft alone (14; 15). Other studies have found similar or improved
rates of fusion (bone healing) in patients treated with PRP (16; 17). This represents a very illustratable example
of excitement overrunning scientific caution.
Prior to these studies physicians performing fusions were rapidly
adopting PRP to augment fusion rates based solely on its potential biological
mechanism.
There are several variables that should be
considered and investigated prior to moving on to human PRP studies for spine
pain. PRP, as studied and reported, is
very heterogenous. Many papers do not quantify the platelet concentration
used. As a result, there is little or no
experience with dose related effects.
Also, studies use different activators, whether Calcium Chloride,
thrombin or plasma, potentially confounding results. Furthermore, some formulations contain white
blood cells, while others do not. The
contribution of white blood cells to PRP’s potentially therapeutic effects are
not well understood. Lastly, caution
should be taken when studying any substance that requires a disc puncture. Human and animal studies alike have already
validated the potential for needle based disc punctures to result in
accelerated disc degeneration (2; 12; 18).
Despite the lack of validated human data
to promote the use of PRP in treating spine pain, it’s availability and ease of
production, lack of regulation, public demand and willingness of practitioners
to administer it have created an extensive cash based cottage industry. Like most drugs and devices, experience and
investigation will show that there is no PRP related “Holy Grail” for the
treatment of spinal pain or musculoskeletal injury. Rather, there are and will be some
applications that are better than others and probably some applications that
should be avoided all together. The use
of PRP injected intramuscularly (where it can cause muscle fibrosis) and the
use of PRP in fusion surgery (where it can actually result in lower fusion
rates) are examples of potentially good applications based on biological
mechanism that were not borne out scientifically. While the study of PRP and other biologics
for the treatment of
spinal pain is reasonable and in fact supported by animal data, widespread use
without scientific validity is not and restraint should be exercised.
1. Marx, R
and Garg A. Dental and craniofacial applications of platelet rich plasma. Quintessence publishing company Inc, 2005.
2. Obata S et al. Effect of autologous
platelet-rich plasma-releasate on intervertebral disc degeneration in the
rabbit annular puncture model: A preclinical study. Arthritis
research & Therapy, Nov 2012, Vol. 14, p. R241.
3. Crovetti G et al. Platelet gel for healing
cutaneous chronic wounds. Transfus Apher Sci, 2004. Vol. 30, pp. 145-51.
4. McAleer JP, Kaplan E, Persich G. Efficacy of
concentrated autologous platelet-derived growth factors in chronic lower
extremity wounds. J Am Podiatr Med
Assoc, Vol. 96, pp. 482-8.
5. Edwards SG, Calandruccio JH. Autologous blood injections
for refractory lateral epicondylitis. 2003, Am J Hand Surg, Vol. 28, pp. 272-8.
6. Platelet Rich Plasma
Significantly Improves Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Chronic Tennis Elbow
(abstract). Mishra AK, Skrepnik NV, Edwards, SG et al.
Chicago. Proceedings of the 2013 annual meeting of the
American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery.
7. Barrett S, Erredge S. Growth factors for chronic
plantar fascitis. 2004, Podiatry Today, Vol. 17, pp. 37-42.
8. PRP does
not improve rotator cuff healing. AAOS Now. April 2011.
9. Stanton, T. PRP shows little benefit in ACL reconstruction at 6
months. AAOS Now. April 2010.
10. Stanton,
T. High-concentrate PRP Promotes Healing in Long-Bone. AAOS
Now. February 2010.
11. Leahy, M. PRP effective in treating chronic Achilles tendinosis.
AAOS Now. March 2010.
12. Gullung G et al. Platelet-rich plasma effects on degenerative disc
disease: analysis of histology and imaging in an animal model. Evidence-Based
Spine-Care Journal. 2011, Vol. 21, 4,
pp. 13-18.
13. Chen WH et al. Intervertebral dsic regeneration in an ex vivo culture
system using mesenchymal stem cells and platelet-rich plasma. Biometerials. Oct 2009, Vol. 29, pp. 5523-33.
14. Carreon LY et al. Platelet gel (AGF) fails to increase fusion rates in
instrumented posterolateral fusions. Spine. 2009, Vol. 30, 9, pp. E243-7.
15. Weiner BK, Walker M. Efficacy of autologous growth factors in autologous
intertransverse fusions. Spine. 2003, Vol. 28, pp. 1968-70.
16. Jenis LG, Banco RJ, Kwon B. A prospective study of Autologous Growth Factors (AGF)
in lumbar interbody fusion. Spine J. 2006,
Vol. 6, 1, pp. 14-20.
17. Hee HT et al. Do autologous growth factors enhance transforaminal
lumbar interbody fusion? Eur Spine
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400-7.
18. Carragee
EJ et al. 2009 ISSLS prize
winner: Does discography cause
accelerated progression of degenerative changes in the lumbar disc. Spine.
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