Platelet-rich plasma augmentation in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: Evidence is still too scattered. A scoping review of randomised controlled trials

Abstract

Purpose: Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) augmentation has been proposed to improve the results of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). The present study aims to quantify the available evidence to support the use of PRP as biological augmentation in ACLR surgery.

Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted on the PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science and Embase databases on 10 March 2023. Inclusion criteria were randomised controlled trials (RCTs), written in English, addressing PRP augmentation in ACLR surgery, with no time limitation. A scoping review was performed to map the body of literature by examining the evidence related to specific aspects of patients' treatment and evaluation. Risk of bias evaluation was performed with the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomised trials Version 2 (RoB 2), while the quality assessment was performed with the use of the Coleman Score.

Results: Out of 983 articles retrieved, 23 RCTs on 943 knees were included in this scoping review. PRP was administered in a liquid form in nine studies and clotted in 11 studies, while in three studies both liquid and clotted PRP were used. Hamstring auto/allografts were used in 14 studies, patellar tendon auto/allografts were used in eight studies and one study described ACLR with peroneus longus allografts. The map of the evidence documented high heterogeneity also in terms of surgical technique, objective and subjective outcome measures and radiological assessment, as well as follow-up times ranging from 1 day to 2 years, with virtually no overlapping data among studies neither in terms of treatments nor evaluations. Risk of bias evaluation showed an overall low quality of the included studies.

Conclusions: The available literature addressing PRP augmentation in ACLR is largely scattered. PRP was produced and applied following different procedures, and high variability was detected across the included studies for every aspect of ACLR surgery and evaluation. Currently, a meaningful comparison of the available studies is not possible as the quantification of the literature results is biased by their heterogeneity. Future studies should provide more standardisation to investigate the benefits of biological augmentation in ACL surgery and confirm the promising yet weak evidence of PRP potential as well as the most suitable application modality, before routine use in clinical practice.

Level of evidence: Levels I and II, scoping review.

Keywords: anterior cruciate ligament; biological augmentation; platelet‐rich plasma (PRP); reconstruction; scoping review.