Purpose: Platelet rich plasma (PRP) is derived from the patient's own blood. The activated blood platelets release a cocktail of growth factors, some of which are thought to initiate and stimulate repair. We compared two groups to investigate whether the use of PRP mixed with bone chips improves bone healing in patients with a skeletal defect.
Methods: In total, 41 patients were observed. One group underwent a high tibial osteotomy with the addition of PRP and bone chips in the open wedge. The other group underwent the same procedure without the addition of PRP. Six patients had to be excluded because of insufficient data or they were lost to follow-up. Bone healing was studied using computed tomography scanning. The blood was sequestered and PRP was produced using a blood cell separator with a PRP software program (Electa, Sorin Group, Mirandola, Italy).
Results: Analysis focused on the remaining 35 patients. At baseline, there were no differences between the two groups for age, sex and side of operation. At one week postoperatively, the bone density under (p = 0.02) and above the wedge was significantly lower in the PRP group than the control group (p = 0.24). At six weeks postoperatively, no significant differences between the treatment groups were found. At 12 weeks, the PRP group had significantly lower bone density under the wedge compared to the control group (p = 0.01).
Conclusions: We found that patients with a skeletal defect did not benefit from the application of PRP mixed with an allograft regarding bone healing.