Application of platelet-rich plasma in spinal surgery

Abstract

With the aging of the population and changes in lifestyle, the incidence of spine-related diseases is increasing, which has become a major global public health problem; this results in a huge economic burden on the family and society. Spinal diseases and complications can lead to loss of motor, sensory, and autonomic functions. Therefore, it is necessary to identify effective treatment strategies. Currently, the treatment of spine-related diseases includes conservative, surgical, and minimally invasive interventional therapies. However, these treatment methods have several drawbacks such as drug tolerance and dependence, adjacent spondylosis, secondary surgery, infection, nerve injury, dural rupture, nonunion, and pseudoarthrosis. Further, it is more challenging to promote the regeneration of the interstitial disc and restore its biomechanical properties. Therefore, clinicians urgently need to identify methods that can limit disease progression or cure diseases at the etiological level. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP), a platelet-rich form of plasma extracted from venous blood, is a blood-derived product. Alpha granules contain a large number of cytokines, such as platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor, platelet factor 4 (PF-4), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β). These growth factors allow stem cell proliferation and angiogenesis, promote bone regeneration, improve the local microenvironment, and enhance tissue regeneration capacity and functional recovery. This review describes the application of PRP in the treatment of spine-related diseases and discusses the clinical application of PRP in spinal surgery.

Recent Achievements in the Development of Biomaterials Improved with Platelet Concentrates for Soft and Hard Tissue Engineering Applications

“…The applications of PCs were proven to be successful in sports, spine and musculoskeletal medicine; ophthalmology; and oral surgery [26][27][28]. Many reports show the ability of PCs to accelerate the regeneration of ligaments, bones, muscles, cartilage and nervous tissue [29][30][31][32]. These positive results suggest that PCs may be used to effectively help treat various clinical cases.…”

New strategy of personalized tissue regeneration: when autologous platelet concentrates encounter biomaterials

“…PDGF positively regulates human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) osteogenic differentiation induced by TGF-β through the synergistic crosstalk between MEK and PI3K/Akt-mediated signal transduction (Yokota et al, 2014). IGF facilitates stem cell expression of alkaline phosphatase, RUNX2 and OPN while also participating in osteogenic differentiation (Wang et al, 2023a).…”