Autologous Platelet-Rich Plasma in The Management of Diabetic Foot Ulcer: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials

Abstract

Context: Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) remains a devastating and prevalent complication of diabetes, which leads to significant morbidity, mortality, and economic implications. Outcomes of DFU management are still unsatisfactory, warranting innovations to improve them. One accessible and promising potential for treating DFU is autologous platelet-rich plasma (PRP), a blood product abundant in bioactive molecules. Platelet-rich plasma has been used in other fields of medicine to treat various conditions. Evidence Acquisition: While there is substantial research studying the use of PRP for DFU, these studies are regarded as having flaws in methodology. Hence, this systematic review aims to bridge the knowledge gap by only including randomized controlled trials (RCT). Results: After sifting through various databases, six studies were included. This review focused on specific outcomes, namely percentage of patients with healed wounds, wound size, and time to closure. Conclusions: The authors found that PRP has performed well with regards to healing DFU wounds with a high rate of healing, which leads to a shorter time to wound closure.

Preconditioning Local Injection of Activated Platelet-Rich Plasma Increases Angiogenesis, VEGF Levels, and Viability of Modified McFarlane Flap in Diabetes-Induced Rats

“…14 The use of PRP has been described as an adjunctive therapy with superior results for conditions resulting from microvascular complications in diabetic patients, for instance, in diabetic foot ulcers. 15 The increase of VEGF levels observed in flaps preconditioned with PRP likely played a significant role in enhancing flap vascularization. VEGF functions as a pivotal growth factor for angiogenesis and has been extensively studied, particularly in patients with healing disturbances such as those with diabetes and malignancy.…”

“… 14 The use of PRP has been described as an adjunctive therapy with superior results for conditions resulting from microvascular complications in diabetic patients, for instance, in diabetic foot ulcers. 15 …”

Digital Image Analysis of Diabetic Foot Ulcer Areas Using ImageJ Software (National Institute of Health, USA) in Patients Treated with Autologous Activated Platelet-rich Plasma Injection

“…Some studies have investigated the effect of allogenic and autologous cell bases or cell-free therapies. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy is a cell-free therapy that has been reported to potentially aid in the healing of DFU (2)(3)(4)(5)(6).…”