The aim of this review and meta-analysis is to assess recent clinical trials concerning the combination of operative treatment of rotator cuff tears and the administration of PRP and its effect on clinical scores and postoperative retear rates. The trials were used to compare the combination of PRP treatment and arthroscopic rotator cuff repair to arthroscopy alone. Twenty-five clinical trials were reviewed. A risk-of-bias assessment was made for all randomized clinical trials included, using the Cochrane collaboration’s tool as well as a quality assessment for all non-randomized studies utilizing the Newcastle−Ottawa scale. The PRP-treated patients showed statistically significant improvement postoperatively compared to control groups concerning the Constant−Murley (mean difference 2.46, 95% CI 1.4−3.52, p < 0.00001), SST (mean difference 0.32, 95% CI 0.02−0.63, p = 0.04), and UCLA (mean difference 0.82, 95% CI 0.23−1.43, p = 0.07) scores. A statistically significant decrease of retear rates in the PRP-treated patients, with a risk ratio of 0.78 (95% CI 0.65−0.94, p = 0.01), was found. We believe that the results presented have positive aspects, especially concerning the retear risk, but are yet inconclusive concerning clinical results such as shoulder pain and function.
Keywords: arthroscopy; growth factors; platelet-rich fibrin; platelet-rich plasma; rotator cuff tears; shoulder injuries.