Background: The rationale for using topical platelet gel therapy is to provide the healing tissues with concentrated platelet-derived factors. Several systems are available to prepare platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and from these, the platelet gel. These systems produce two- to six-fold platelet and growth factor-enriched concentrations. The bioavailability of growth factors in tissue healing depends on the amount of growth factors stored in platelets but a portion of these is lost during platelet manipulation. Very few data have been reported on the kinetics of growth factor release from PRP-gels. The aim of this study is to assess the growth factor recovery and its bioavailability to tissues in four different PRP and PRP-gel preparation techniques.
Materials and methods: Three commercially available devices (Fibrinet, RegenPRP-Kit, Plateltex) and one manual procedure (home made, HM) were evaluated with reference to resulting platelet concentration, growth factor content and the kinetics of growth factor release from gel.
Results: Platelet concentration increased from 1.65- to 4.4-fold in comparison with whole blood initially used. The final platelet concentration (x 10(3)/microl) was: Fibrinet 1358 +/- 419, Regen 430 +/- 109, HM 1196 +/- 188, and Plateltex 1160 +/- 164. A high variation (5- to 27-fold) was found in growth factor concentration in relation to the method used and also a high variation in the kinetics of growth factor release from gels.
Conclusions: Similar methods for platelet gel preparation revealed different performances concerning growth factor recovery and the kinetics of its release from the gel. It is unclear whether these noticeable differences are important for clinical management.