Abstract
Introduction: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery is ever more frequent and commonly has a satisfactory outcome.
Purpose: To assess whether platelet-enriched gel has positive effects on immediate postoperative evolution and on the final clinical result.
Materials and methods: We carried out a prospective, randomized study by alternatively selecting 50 patients. The control group (without gel) comprised 25 patients and the Gel group (with platelet gel) also contained 25 patients; both groups were homogeneous in terms of age and sex. The same anesthesia, surgery and analgesia protocol was used in all cases and hospital discharge was 24–48 hours postoperatively. Pain assessment was carried out by detection of inflammation (pre and post patellar perimeter) and PCR (at 24 hours and 7 days). Clinical results were assessed by means of IKDC; radiological studies were performed using plain x-rays and MRI.
Results: No statistically significant differences were found (p< 0.05) in all the data analyzed, although there is a trend towards less inflammation in the group treated with gel, both clinically and analytically. There were no significant differences in the functional results of surgery and the MRI showed an increased intensity of signal and greater homogeneity in T2 in the gel group plasties.
Conclusions: The use of platelet gel in ACL surgery could have a beneficial effect on inflammatory and analytical parameters, but not on clinical results.
The abstracts were prepared by E. Carlos Rodríguez-Merchán, Editor-in-Chief of the Spanish Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (Revista de Ortopedia y Traumatología). Correspondence should be addressed to him at: Sociedad Española de Cirugía Ortopédica y Traumatología, calle Fernández de los Ríos 108, 28015-Madrid, Spain
