Journal of Pain & Relief
Open Access

Research Article

Are Platelet Rich Plasma Injections More Effective in Tendinopathy or Enthesopathy?

Rocco Papalia^1*, Biagio Zampogna¹, Gianluca Vadala¹, Alberto Di Martino¹, Carolina Nobile², Angelo Del Buono¹, Guglielmo Torre¹, Maria Cristina Tirindelli², Nicola Maffulli³ and Vincenzo Denaro¹

¹Department of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery, Campus Bio-medico University of Rome, Via Alvaro del Portillo Rome, Italy

²Department of Haematology, Stem Cell Transplantation, Transfusion Medicine and Cellular Therapy, Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital, Via Alvaro del Portillo, Rome, Italy

³Department of Musculoskeletal Disorders, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Salerno, Italy

*Corresponding Author:

Rocco Papalia
Department of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery
Campus Bio-medico University of Rome
Via Alvaro del Portillo 200, 00128 Rome, Italy
Tel: + +393346567482
E-mail: r.papalia@unicampus.it

Received date: March 26, 2017; Accepted date: April 07, 2017; Published date: April 12, 2017

Citation: Papalia R, Zampogna B, Vadala G, Di Martino A, Nobile C, et al. (2017) Are Platelet Rich Plasma Injections More Effective in Tendinopathy or Enthesopathy? J Pain Relief 6:288. doi: 10.4172/2167-0846.1000288

Copyright: © 2017 Papalia R, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction: Chronic overuse insertional tendinopathy (entesopathy) is highly prevalent, but is an extremely difficult condition that generates a high medical expense. Alternative and co-adjuvant therapies to improve the quality of life and physical function of affected patients are currently being sought.

Materials and Methods: A total of 31 patients affected by entesopathy at different anatomical sites (elbow tendinopathy, greater trochanter pain syndrome and plantar fasciopathy) were treated with three peritendinous injections of autologous platelet rich plasma (PRP) and included in the present investigation. VAS scale and segmental scores for the affected site before the first injection of PRP and at 6 months after the last injection were used. One hundred and seven patients that underwent the same injection protocol in the same time lapse were used as a control group, and were represented by patients with non-insertional tendinopathy (shoulder and at Achilles tendon).

Results: Significantly lower values between pre-treatment and follow-up pain scores at all-time points were found in the patients affected by entesopathy compared to tendinopathy (p<0.001). As a confirmative finding, the segmental scores at the shoulder and ankle did not improve overtime, differently from what occurred in patients with entesopathy.

Conclusion: At 6 months following peritendinous injections of PRP in patients with entesopathy there was a significant reduction of pain, associated to a significant improvement in recorded segmental scores. Conversely, the treatment was not effective in patients with pure tendinopathy at the shoulder and ankle level. These favorable findings point to consider PRP as a promising therapy for patients affected by entesopathy.

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