The intra-articular injection of medicines is widely used in orthopedics to soothe joint pain in patients with osteoarthritis for whom pharmacological treatments or physiotherapy are not effective. The most commonly used active ingredients are local anesthetics, corticosteroids, oxygen-ozone and especially hyaluronic acid while the joints treated are different from the small ones such as the interphalangeal joints to the more voluminous ones such as the knee and hip joints. However , a highly innovative approach in articular infiltration techniques is represented by the use of PRGF®, a particular platelet concentrate already known in oral and implant surgery.
PRGF®, plasma rich in platelet growth factors, i.e. an autologous platelet concentrate that exploits the properties of platelets and the growth factors they release to obtain tissue healing is obtained by centrifugation, according to well-coded parameters, of venous blood of the patient and the subsequent separation of the different blood components. PRGF® is thus able to accelerate and amplify the body’s natural biological healing processes, stimulating cellular proliferation and differentiation, tissue regeneration by associating an important anti-inflammatory effect.
Although it is an innovative treatment, it has the undoubted advantage of its greater ease of execution compared to a double needle arthrocentesis, still guaranteeing excellent functional results both in the short and long term even for those patients who have not benefited from the gnathological approach alone traditional with release or repositioning plates.
However, we must remember that, like other surgical techniques, the articular anatomy is not restitutio ad integrum , but its functionality is simply improved and pain is eliminated.
Most likely, the release of growth factors allows the resolution of the intra-articular inflammation and the subsequent reconstitution of a fibrous pseudodisc which replaces the now irreparably damaged meniscus. For it to be effective , a cycle of 3 intra-articular applications is foreseen with an interval of 3 weeks between one and the other.
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