Platelet-rich plasma for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic, inflammatory, autoimmune ailment which involves joint pathogenesis, bone and cartilage irregularities, together with systemic comorbidities, impacting over 75 million people worldwide. At present there is no remedy for RA and the existing treatment modalities utilized have shortcomings and side effects. Recently, there has been an increased interest in use of biologics, such as platelet-rich plasma (PRP), for regenerative medicine applications, including for musculoskeletal ailments. This prompted consideration of use of PRP in patients suffering with RA. In this editorial, we highlighted the safety and efficacy of PRP to treat RA based on recently published clinical studies. These studies, despite preliminary, demonstrated that use of PRP is safe and laid the foundation for multi-center prospective open-label non-randomized trials and double-blinded randomized controlled trials with larger sample size to further evaluate the efficacy of PRP to alleviate symptoms of RA for potential clinical usage.