The Pain Unit of the Anesthesiology and Critical Care Service of the Castile-La Mancha Health Service (Sescam) in Albacete has begun using Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) for the treatment of pain.
The patient’s blood as the key to treatment
This is a new service with which the department that provides other complex pain treatments is expanding its portfolio of services.
As explained by the head of the department, anesthetist Martin Arkas, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a product extracted from the patient’s blood that has a high concentration of platelets, which, when activated, release a large number of cell signaling factors. And cytokines.
“These factors are credited with anti-inflammatory, regenerative and analgesic effects, and play a fundamental role in both acute and chronic pain,” comments Arkas.
osteoarthritis of the knee
One of the best known and most studied uses of PRP is in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee, which has shown very favorable results in combating pain and degenerative joint disease. Its use in the treatment of tendinopathies, better known in the sports world, has also gained ground and many athletes have benefited from this treatment.
“To date, its use is not only focused on joints and tendons, but its benefits for spinal pain have already begun to be shown, and new studies are published in this regard every day. For this reason, since it is one of the most frequent pathologies in pain management units, we wanted to provide our patients with this new therapeutic tool, which also has a very clear advantage over the classical use of corticosteroids: no systemic side effects. like hyperglycemia or hypertension,” explains a specialist from the Albacete department.
These treatments entail the need to precisely localize the specific structure in which the anti-inflammatory effect is desired, and for this they are always performed under image control (ultrasound or x-ray), which increases the effectiveness and safety of the treatment. treatment procedure.