Platelet-rich plasma injections as a second-line treatment in patients with tendinopathy-related chronic pain and failure of conservative treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
DESIGN: Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a popular treatment option in managing chronic tendinopathies, although the literature is inconsistent, mainly because of significant heterogeneity in patient populations. Patients who failed conservative management may respond differently than those who have not undergone first-line treatment. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the efficacy of PRP injections in reducing pain and improving function in patients with chronic tendinopathy who failed conservative treatment. A comprehensive search of Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL Complete and Dissertations & Theses Global was conducted to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the effect of PRP vs non-surgical treatments on pain and functional outcomes in adult non-responders to conservative management. RESULTS: A total of 9 RCTs involving 488 patients were included in the review. Of those, 6 studies at low risk of bias were included in the meta-analysis. PRP significantly reduced pain at both 6 and 12 months compared to control treatments (mean difference: -0.83 [95% confidence intervals (CI): -1.61 to -0.04] at 6 months; and -1.11 [95% CI: -2.10 to -0.12] at 12 months). This effect was also seen at 24 months, although based on limited data. Subgroup analysis revealed no significant differences in pain reduction between upper and lower limb tendinopathies. Functional improvement was observed in some studies, though the heterogeneity in outcome measures precluded a pooled analysis. Heterogeneity was substantial across studies, likely due to differences in PRP preparation, site of tendinopathy, and study methodologies. CONCLUSION: Despite these limitations, the findings suggest that PRP reduces pain in patients suffering from chronic tendinopathy who have not responded to first-line therapies. Further high-quality research with standardized protocols and longer follow-up is necessary to confirm PRP's long-term efficacy and safety.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.020 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.021 | 0.034 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".