Dr. Raj Kanna is a consultant Orthopaedic and Knee surgeon, who have made a mark in the field of Orthopedics with his success stories.
Human blood consists mainly of the liquid based plasma along with small solid components, which include Red Blood cells, White Blood cells and platelets. The platelets help in the clotting of blood and they are rich in proteins called growth factors, which helps in the healing process.
Platelet Rich Plasma or PRP is the plasma with higher concentration of platelets than normally found in the blood. The concentration of platelets in PRP is around 5 to 10 times higher, when compared to normal blood.
The first step is to draw blood from the patient, and then the platelets are separated from the other blood cells. The concentration of platelets is then increased by using the process of centrifugation.
The increased concentration of the growth factors present in the Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) helps in speeding up the healing process. The PRP is applied to the injured area to speed up the healing. This can be administered using the following processes:
The PRP therapy is administered to patients after keeping the following factors in mind:
Some of the injuries which can benefit from the quick healing properties of PRP are:
For example, the inflammation of the Patellar tendon at the knee or the Jumper’s knee can be healed using PRP:
These types of injuries include pulled hamstring muscles and knee sprains and are usually associated with professional athletes and other sports persons. PRP has been administered in many sports person with similar injuries with high success rate of healing.
Administering of PRP to the injured areas like ACL during surgeries has beneficial effects in some patients.
PRP administration for treating knee arthritis is another example of this therapy.
There have been cases of the administration of PRP to fractures.