How long does a PRP injection work for knee osteoarthritis?
Every patient wants to know the answer to this question. My answer is partly based on this publication by 4 authors including friend Aaron Calodney, MD. They published a comprehensive analysis in 2015 based on the best evidence currently available. After crunching the data from 24 included studies with a total of 2315 patients...the answer is....pain and function improved for 6 months and at 12 months pain and function scores were still better than preinjection scores. There was a wide range of products injected across these studies. Ongoing research since 2015 suggests that platelet counts above 1000 and total platelet doses above 5 billion give longer and better clinical outcomes.
The low concentration/lower doses of PRP still seem to help too, but for a shorter time.
