Platelet-rich plasma injections for chronic plantar fasciitis
The Regenerative Clinic's view on this research
Mr Nima Heidari “In this paper, 14 patients with traditional methods of treating plantar fasciitis, which includes physiotherapy, splints, shockwave therapy and insoles, were given three injections of PRP using the Arthrex ACP System over a three-week period. This paper demonstrates that the treatment using PRP is safe as there were no adverse events following the injections. What they also found was that 11 of the 14 patients had a good or excellent outcome at one-year following the injections. The patients had their pain graded at approximately 7 on the Visual Analogue Scale where 0 is no pain and 10 is the worse pain imaginable. When they repeated this outcome measure, the pain was between 1 and 2 for the vast majority of the patients. There is continued and emerging evidence that PRP is safe and it is effective in the treatment of a variety of painful conditions associated with tendons and ligaments. This paper is another study which clearly demonstrates this.”
Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the safety and preliminary clinical results of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections for treating chronic plantar fasciitis.
Methods: Fourteen consecutive patients with chronic plantar fasciitis receiving three injections of PRP into the plantar fascia were assessed 12 months after the procedure. The modified Roles and Maudsley score and a visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain were used to evaluate the clinical results.
Results: According to criteria of the Roles and Maudsley score, at 12 months of follow-up, results were rated as excellent in nine (64.3 %), good in two (14.3 %), acceptable in two (14.3 %) and poor in one (7.1 %) patient. VAS for pain was significantly decreased from 7.1±1.1 before treatment to 1.9±1.5 at the last follow-up (p<0.01).
Conclusions: In this single-centre, uncontrolled, prospective, preliminary study, results indicate that treating chronic plantar fasciitis with PRP injections is safe and has the potential to reduce pain.