The effect of platelet rich plasma combined with microfracture for the treatment of chondral defect in a rabbit knee

Abstract

Recently, many clinical studies have been published regarding platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection for early degenerative joint disease. We evaluated the cartilage repair potential of platelet-rich plasma when injected into the knee joint. Articular, cartilage defects 4 mm in diameter and circular in shape were made in the trochlear region of 20 knees in 10 New Zealand white rabbits who were divided into two groups. The left knees in the control group underwent microfracture, and the right knees in the experimental group underwent microfracture with subsequent injection of platelet-rich plasma. At week 12 following the surgery, the cartilage was observed macroscopically and histologically compared in the two groups. The control group showed incomplete and irregular fibrous tissue formation in the defect. The experimental group showed nearly complete defect coverage with neo-cartilage. In the histologic scoring, comparison of the control group and the experimental group differed significantly (p < 0.05).Therefore, injection of platelet-rich plasma used to treat articular cartilage defects of the knee appears to have some effect for cartilage regeneration.

A Preliminary Study Comparing Microfracture and Local Adherent Transplantation of Autologous Adipose-Derived Stem Cells Followed by Intraarticular Injection of Platelet-Rich Plasma for the Treatment of Chondral Defects in Rabbits

“…Huh et al demonstrated that microfracture following PRP injection resulted in repaired cartilage that was more histologically differentiated than that from microfracture alone. 10 These findings coincide with those reported previously, in which microfracture was tested as a treatment option. 11-13…”

Expression of tenocyte lineage-related factors from tonsil-derived mesenchymal stem cells

“…Under our experimental conditions, however, treatment with BMP-12 was unlikely to be effective on tenogenic differentiation of TMSCs; it increased mRNA of only COL1, but not of TNMD and SCX (data not shown). Some of chondrogenic differentiation factors such as platelet rich plasma [39] and growth differentiation factor-5 [40] are also likely to mediate tenocytic differentiation because both chondrogenesis and tenogenesis are highly active and cooperative in particular during musculoskeletal tissue regeneration. However, whether these chondrogenic differentiation factors indeed mediate tenogenic differentiation of TMSCs warrants further investigations.…”

Implications of anticoagulants and gender on cell counts and growth factor concentration in platelet-rich plasma and platelet-rich gel supernatants from rabbits

“…We consider that several PRP preparations have been described in the scientific literature, which have very similar cell concentrations to the PRP preparations evaluated in this study. In this sense, we could classify these substances as transitional PRP because Different rabbit PRP preparations have been evaluated in diverse disease models (29,31,39,40). However, information related to the standard PRP processing protocols and growth factor concentrations is not usually found in these studies (29,31,40).…”

“…In this sense, we could classify these substances as transitional PRP because Different rabbit PRP preparations have been evaluated in diverse disease models (29,31,39,40). However, information related to the standard PRP processing protocols and growth factor concentrations is not usually found in these studies (29,31,40). Thus, it is important to stress that a standard PRP processing protocol must include information such as the type of anticoagulant tubes or preparation kits, the relative centrifugation forces, the duration of centrifugation, the number of centrifugation steps, the activating substances employed, cell counts, growth factor concentrations, and platelet-related activation parameters, such as mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width (14,23).…”

“…Moreover, different rabbit models of musculoskeletal disease are being used to evaluate the effects of different regenerative approaches, such as PRP and stem cells (29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34). However, although there are several experimental studies that evaluate the therapeutic effect of PRP in several rabbit models of disease, there is scarce information about the basic biology of PRP and the complete description of the methods used to produce and classify these kinds of substances in this species (29)(30)(31). Thus, it is important to do a complete characterization of the PRP that potentially could be evaluated in different rabbit models of musculoskeletal disease.…”