Menu

rss
Original articles: Growth factor-based therapies provide additional benefit beyond physical therapy in resistant elbow tendinopathy: a prospective, single-blind, randomised trial of autologous blood injections versus platelet-rich plasma injections
  • Leon Creaney,
  • Andrew Wallace,
  • Mark Curtis,
  • David Connell
Br J Sports Med 2011;45:12 966-971 Published Online First: 15 March 2011 doi:10.1136/bjsm.2010.082503

  1. Cost implications of treatment need discussion

    • Nick Webborn, Sports physician
    University of Brighton
    This study provides a useful additional information with regard to the merits of injection therapy in the management of resistant elbow tendinopathy. It would have been helpful if the authors had commented on the relative costs (time/money) of the treatments given the current pressures on minimising health care costs. There are variety of systems available for producing platelet rich plasma injections which can result in a significant cost burden to the health care provider or patient. Studies such of this will be picked up by manufacturers of these systems and used in their marketing.However if there is no significant difference in clinical outcome by using simple autologous blood injections then the authors should conclude that there is no enhanced benefit from using PRP and its associated costs are not justified. The volume of blood injected was not described in the section on "technique" and this should be corrected to make the methodology clear and reproducible. It is assumed that the 1.5 mL 'siphoned from the buffy coat layer' was used for the PRP injectionbut this needs to be clarified. Finally,whether it is the injection procedure and physical disruption of the tissue or the contents of the syringe that are important in stimulating a response remains unclear.

    Conflict of Interest:

    None declared

    Submit response
    Published 4 November 2011
« Parent article

Published letters

  1. Cost implications of treatment need discussion

This page

Free sample

This recent issue is free to all users to allow everyone the opportunity to see the full scope and typical content of BJSM.
View free sample issue >>

Email alerts

Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.