Autologous growth factor injections in chronic tendinopathy
Two articles on PainSci cite Sandrey 2014: 1. Tennis Elbow Guide 2. Does Platelet-Rich Plasma Injection Work?
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
CONCLUSIONS: Strong evidence indicates that autologous growth factor injections do not improve plantar fasciopathy pain or function when combined with anesthetic agents or when compared with corticosteroid injections, dry needling, or exercise therapy treatments. Furthermore, limited evidence suggests that PRP injections are beneficial. Except for 2 high-quality RCT studies, the rest were methodologically flawed. Additional studies should be conducted using proper control groups, randomization, blinding, and validated disability outcome measures for pain and function. Until then, the results remain speculative because autologous whole-blood and PRP injection treatments are not standardized.
related content
- “Strong evidence against platelet-rich plasma injections for chronic lateral epicondylar tendinopathy: a systematic review,” Robert-Jan de Vos, Johann Windt, and Adam Weir, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2014.
- “Impact of autologous blood injections in treatment of mid-portion Achilles tendinopathy: double blind randomised controlled trial,” Kevin J Bell, Mark L Fulcher, David S Rowlands, and Ngaire Kerse, British Medical Journal, 2013.
- “Platelet-rich therapies for musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries,” Vinícius Y Moraes, Mário Lenza, Marcel Jun Tamaoki, Flávio Faloppa, and João Carlos Belloti, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2014.
- “Popular Blood Therapy May Not Work,” Gina Kolata, New York Times.
- “Meta-analysis Comparing Platelet-Rich Plasma vs Hyaluronic Acid Injection in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis,” Yanhong Han, Hetao Huang, Jianke Pan, Jiongtong Lin, Lingfeng Zeng, Guihong Liang, Weiyi Yang, and Jun Liu, Pain Med, 2019.
- “The Efficacy of Platelet-Rich Plasma on Tendon and Ligament Healing: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis With Bias Assessment,” Xiao Chen, Ian A Jones, Caron Park, and Jr Vangsness, American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2018.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Photobiomodulation therapy is not better than placebo in patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Guimarães 2021 Pain.
- No effect of creatine monohydrate supplementation on inflammatory and cartilage degradation biomarkers in individuals with knee osteoarthritis. Cornish 2018 Nutr Res.
- The CANBACK trial: a randomised, controlled clinical trial of oral cannabidiol for people presenting to the emergency department with acute low back pain. Bebee 2021 Med J Aust.
- Relationships Between Sleep Quality and Pain-Related Factors for People with Chronic Low Back Pain: Tests of Reciprocal and Time of Day Effects. Gerhart 2017 Ann Behav Med.
- Modulation in the elastic properties of gastrocnemius muscle heads in individuals with plantar fasciitis and its relationship with pain. Zhou 2020 Sci Rep.