Platelet Lysate
Your Body’s Own Natural Anti-Inflammatory
What Is PL?
Platelet Lysate (PL) offers the benefits of steroid injections without the side effects of diminished immune system response or weakening of connective tissue.
Treatment Benefits
- Decreases inflammation around herniated discs and irritated nerves
- Used as alternative to epidural steroid injections
- Decreases joint pain with less inflammatory response than PRP
- Immediate release of growth factors from your own platelets
- Option to managing your pain without surgery
The Science
A Study Showing The Efficacy of Platelet Lysate Treatment
FAQ'S
Platelet Lysate (PL) contains potent anti-inflammatory agents and also provides a concentrated source of growth factors. It affects the inflammatory cascade where it is injected, inhibiting the destructive nature of the inflammatory agents that leak out when a disk herniates. The growth factors combine the benefits of corticosteroid injection with the benefits of stimulated healing of platelet growth factors, without the side effects of corticosteroids.
Spinal stenosis causes nerve compromise with irritation and swelling of the nerve root and ultimately may lead to nerve damage. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other nerve entrapment conditions have a similar basic cause. The pain and neurological complaints come from the enlarged, edematous, swollen, irritated nerves. Platelet Lysate can be injected into the location of the nerve injury using fluoroscopic guidance, similar to an Epidural Steroid Injection, to stimulate both a reduction of inflammation as well as a natural healing stimulus. Other nerve entrapments can be addressed using ultrasound guidance to target the swollen region of the nerve. When the nerves become healthier after injection, there is usually sufficient space surrounding the nerves to allow them to resume their normal function with less pain and improved neurological function.
Thus, Platelet Lysate appears to offer beneficial effects different from corticosteroid solutions, while also producing a stimulus for natural healing, using the patient’s own natural biological growth factors. More studies in the future are needed to better determine how to use Platelet Lysate more effectively and refine the method.
Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) is proven to help with wound healing and connective tissue repair. Concentrated growth factors from Platelet Lysate go beyond PRP by providing an extract of the content of the platelets, which is used for different purposes.
PRP appears to be more helpful when the goal is to produce denser, thicker tendons and ligaments, to repair and strengthen fibrous tissue connections, and to stimulate joint cartilage and meniscal structures to heal. Platelet Lysate appears to be more useful when there is excessive inflammation within a joint or connective tissue, around a disk herniation, and for stimulating healing of nerve injury caused by trauma and compression. PRP also contains “extended-release” growth factors which release over a week or so, while Platelet Lysate consists of the already-released growth factors. More studies will be needed in the future to better define under what circumstances each solution works best.
PRP is derived from the patient’s own blood (read more here). This blood is processed in the CHARM laboratory to separate the different types of cells and obtain a concentrated fluid, rich in platelets and growth factors. This solution is then processed further using a proprietary process to produce Platelet Lysate. Both PRP and Platelet Lysate are often used during different parts of the same therapeutic procedure to treat various aspects of the tissue damage using the specific strengths and characteristics of each solution.
Current studies and clinical experience suggest minimal known significant safety risk. The product is a direct extension of PRP, which is produced using the patient’s own blood using a sterile laboratory process, and which is injected into the patient within about an hour after the blood has been drawn. PRP has been proven to be quite safe for more than 20 years. Each location that is treated with a needle may have specific risks with respect to nerve and blood vessel location and all procedures and surgeries that break the skin have a rare risk of infection. Careful injection technique, skin sterilization, and the use of ultrasound and fluoroscopic guidance as needed all help to keep the risks exceptionally low.
