Did you know Arizona Equine offers regenerative medicine? One of the tools is PRP or platelet rich plasma. The goal of PRP is to utilize your horse’s own growth factors and cytokines to assist the natural healing process. Cytokines and growth factors are substances that are very important in injury repair. Cytokines help attract cells from the blood or tissues to the site of injury to repair the damaged tissues. Growth factors act on other cells to speed the healing process. Platelets contain both of these substances in high concentrations and have been shown to be very important in the healing process. PRP is obtained by centrifuging your horse’s own blood in a special centrifuge to concentrate the platelets in one small layer of the centrifuge tube. We remove only the platelet-rich fraction (Figure 1, left), and inject it into the injured site with ultrasound guidance. (Figure 1, right) The goal of PRP is to treat injuries that tend to heal poorly or slowly, such as tendon and ligament tears. Recent research shows that there may be benefits in using PRP in some joint injuries as well. Figure 1 – PRP after being spun down (left); Injection of PRP into a horse’s injured tendon (right)
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 18:58:11 +0000
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