What Is Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy?
Platelet-rich plasma therapy (PRP) is becoming more popular for various health conditions, but how does it work and who can benefit from this treatment?
During treatment, some blood is taken from your vein like with a normal blood test. This blood is then run in a centrifuge which spins the blood to separate the liquid plasma from the blood cells and platelets. The platelets are then added back into your plasma and injected into the area of your body that you’re treating.
By concentrating the platelets that are found in the blood, platelet-rich plasma therapy helps to speed up the natural healing process.
How PRP Therapy Works
Platelet–rich plasma therapy works by giving the body’s own repair biology a boost. Instead of using medication or surgery, PRP uses a person’s own blood and platelets to stimulate tissue repair.
Platelets play an important role in clotting, and are the first responders to a site of tissue damage. As part of this response, they release chemical messengers known as growth factors.
By recruiting and communicating with the cells responsible for tissue repair, growth factors control many different aspects of tissue healing and reconstruction.
Some of the most important growth factors released by platelets include:
Platelet-derived growth factors (PDGF)
Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta)
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)
Fibroblast growth factor (FGF)
PDGF and TGF-beta both work in similar ways. These growth factors stimulate the creation of collagen – a protein that supports new tissue growth and the development of new blood vessels. They also help to recruit immune cells that are involved in tissue healing.
VEGF also attracts various immune cells and cells that trigger blood vessel growth, while FGF stimulates the cells involved in bone and cartilage creation and repair.
Together, these growth factors increase blood flow and nutrient delivery to the affected area while recruiting cells that repair damaged tissue and speed up the healing process.
Who Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy Helps
PRP is most commonly used by people with musculoskeletal (MSK) problems such as arthritis that are painful and/or affect movement. However, PRP is also sometimes used to help with sports injury recovery, for dermatological conditions and even after dental surgery.
Conventional treatments for MSK issues tend to focus on nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to treat the pain and inflammation. If these drugs aren’t helping, a steroid injection may be administered to offer some symptom relief. Surgery tends to be considered where other measures haven’t succeeded.
PRP can improve both pain and functional abilities in people with various MSK conditions, although it seems to be most effective where the disease level is mild to moderate (Pretorius et al., 2023). It’s a good option for people who haven’t responded well to traditional treatments or who are trying to avoid surgery (although it may still be needed in some cases).
Similarly, PRP therapy may help individuals who need their sports injuries to heal quickly (such as professional athletes) or who have had limited benefits from physiotherapy/other treatments and are trying to avoid surgery.
People with certain dermatological conditions that haven’t improved with traditional treatments may also be good candidates for PRP therapy.
How well PRP treatment works for any condition depends on various factors. One of which is the quality and quantity of platelets in your blood, which is affected by factors like age, gender and your general health (Colomer-Selva et al., 2025). In fact, one study found that people with chronic inflammation were likely to have smaller platelets that were less granular (with fewer chemicals for blood clotting, stimulating an immune response and healing) (Berger et al., 2024).
Along with variation in platelets within individuals’ blood samples, differences in sample processing also contribute to the variability in how people respond to PRP therapy.
Common Uses
Based on the data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted between 2018-2023, PRP therapy is most commonly used for (Buontempo et al., 2023):
MSK issues – knee osteoarthritis, jaw joint osteoarthritis, rotator cuff injuries
Maxillofacial surgery (affecting the face, jaw, mouth and neck)
Chronic wound healing – pressure ulcers, diabetic ulcers, vascular ulcers
Dermatological conditions – alopecia, melasma, scars, vitiligo
PRP therapy is most often used for MSK problems and there is the largest amount of evidence to support this use (Rahman et al., 2024). Dermatology tends to be the next most common therapy area. Other uses are less well-established and are more experimental, although some do have a growing amount of evidence behind them.
What the Evidence Supports
There is the most strong evidence around PRP therapy for MSK problems, including tendon issues, early osteoarthritis and acute muscle injuries (Collins et al., 2021). There is the highest level of evidence (level I) that PRP treatment is effective for improving osteoarthritis symptoms(Pretorius et al., 2023).
PRP injections can significantly reduce pain and improve function in patients with chronic tendon issues who have failed to see success with other treatments according to data from six RCTs (Mathieu Nadeau-Vallée et al., 2025).
However, several studies have identified variability in preparation methods as a problem when assessing how effective treatment is (Collins et al., 2021).
There’s also a moderate amount of evidence that PRP injections can help with dermatological conditions, including regrowing hair in people with androgenetic alopecia (male/female-pattern hair loss), and improving the appearance of acne scars/photoaged skin (Asubiaro & Avajah, 2024; Buontempo et al., 2023).
Where the Evidence Is Limited
There’s a smaller but growing amount of evidence around PRP therapy as a treatment for other health conditions including dental/oral surgery, chronic wound healing, and even infertility (Rahman et al., 2024).
However, many of the studies are small, low-quality and sometimes even contradictory (Rahman et al., 2024).
While PRP treatment may have real benefits in these areas, we need more data from high-quality studies to say this with any certainty.
Safety and Regulation
PRP is made up of human blood and cells, so it’s regulated in a different way to drugs and many other therapies. Although the FDA regulates how PRP and blood samples should be handled, it doesn’t regulate the therapy itself.
The FDA has cleared several devices that are used to process blood samples and create the PRP solution for injection.
Clinical use of PRP therapy within MSK medicine, dermatology, and other areas relies on physician discretion and the use of FDA-cleared devices. It’s best to receive PRP therapy from a board certified doctor or other healthcare professional with qualifications in this area to make sure the correct technique is used.
PRP therapy generally has a good safety profile with mostly mild side effects that come from the injection itself rather than the therapy. These include pain, tenderness or soreness at the injection site, swelling, bruising, redness, stiffness, itching or slight bleeding.
In rare cases, more severe side effects like infection, tissue damage or nerve/blood vessel injury can happen.
Most people are able to safely receive PRP therapy, but it’s best avoided in people with:
Cancer
Skin infections
Certain blood disorders
A current pregnancy
The Experience
PRP therapy is a minimally invasive treatment that’s a lot like getting a blood test followed by a specialized injection.
You’ll go into the clinic, have your blood taken, wait while it’s processed, then the solution will be injected (usually under ultrasound guidance to make sure it’s going in the right place). Some clinics also offer local anesthetic before the injection to make things more comfortable.
The whole experience should take less than an hour. You’ll usually be told to avoid taking NSAID’s or aspirin for a few days before as these drugs can inhibit platelet function.
You’ll typically need 1-3 sessions with a few weeks in between visits, although you can expect some relief after the first session.
In the first few days after a treatment you can expect some soreness, bruising or swelling where you’ve been injected but this should improve after a few days.
The Future of PRP Therapy
For platelet-rich plasma therapy to become a more widely-used treatment, there needs to be more standardization in the way samples are processed before injection. This will make it easier for researchers to understand the benefits of treatment, but also for patients to potentially get more reliable results.
More research into existing and developing areas where PRP therapy can be applied is needed. This may mean that currently developing uses, such as for erectile dysfunction and infertility, become more accessible (Collins et al., 2021).
Takeaway
PRP therapy is a way to help your body’s natural healing abilities by injecting your own blood with concentrated amounts of platelets in. This therapy usually causes minimal side effects and severe side effects are very rare.
There’s a moderate amount of evidence that it’s useful for MSK and dermatological problems, especially early-to-moderate osteoarthritis and tendon issues that haven’t responded to other treatments.
Although PRP therapy can improve pain and function with various MSK conditions, it can’t fix badly damaged joints or regrow cartilage. You may get some real benefits from trying PRP injections, but it’s important to be realistic about what it can achieve.
