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Does PRP Therapy Actually Work?
Proponents claim your own blood can be a healing elixir — think: the vampire facial — but the science is missing
Osteoarthritis. Your aching back. Tennis elbow. What if you could mitigate, or even cure, these conditions without surgery? Just a little injection and your body does the rest of the work.
That’s the promise of platelet-rich plasma — or PRP — therapy, a procedure that claims to manipulate the body’s own regenerative abilities to fix conditions like ligament tears or scarring. PRP uses platelets — elements derived from your own blood which are then harvested, concentrated, and reinjected at the site of the injury — with the goal to trigger the body’s healing response.
The term PRP was first coined in the 1970s in the field of hematology to describe plasma with a high platelet count and initially used to treat patients with thrombocytopenia, a platelet deficiency in the blood, via transfusion. Eventually, it gained wide use in the field of sports medicine, and athletes like Kobe Bryant and Rafael Nadal have brought it mainstream with their use of the treatment for their knee (Bryant) and elbow (Nadal) injuries.
PRP 101
Platelets do a lot more than clot blood. They’re full of proteins called growth…
