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Several theories and nascent researches within the medical community have the potential to revolutionise the field of medicine, as well as our lives. And regenerative medicine treatment is among the most promising ones.

After centuries of research on external methods of reversing the damage to the human body, there has been a shift of focus. Researches are now looking into using the human body’s own healing process to enable the regeneration of damaged tissues. They’re trying to enhance the tools that nature has provided us with already to fix our bodies.

What is Regenerative Medicine?

Regenerative medicine aims at using Platelet-rich plasma (PRP), or Stem Cells(SC), to rebuild damaged tissue. This research, though still in nascent stages, has shown some promising results.

But it is important to know that since the research still hasn’t reached advanced stages, you need to manage your expectationswhen looking into it as a means of healing therapy.

Regenerative medicine therapy with PRP has the most evidence with regards to musculoskeletal medicine, so that's what we'll be discussing in detail.

Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP)

Platelets, as you might be aware, are the first line of defence against injuries. They create blood clots to stop the bleeding and help with the healing process. They are generated from bone marrow, and flow through your bloodstream, and come into action when needed.

Regenerative medicine is mostly concerned with PRP’s ability to facilitate the healing process. These colourless blood cells have the strong ability to support growth factors. These growth factors are the primary reasons responsible for your body’s healing or regeneration process.

How Does PRP Regenerative Medicine Therapy Work?

Preparing Platelet-rich Plasma for regenerative therapy is a complicated process. First, the patient’s blood is collected with an injection. Then that blood is placed in a centrifuge to spin the blood so that the platelets are separated from the rest of the blood's components. Finally, the blood is divided into three layers. With red blood cells at the bottom, platelets and white blood cells in the middle, and platelet filled plasma at the top.

Even within the platelet filled plasma, there are three layers, with the top contain a poor number of platelets, the middle containing an intermediate number, and the bottom layer containing a rich number of platelets.

Using PRP for Regenerative Therapy

After the collection process is over, the patient is injected with this PRP to accelerate the growth factors and thereby accelerate the healing process of the damaged tissue.

But injecting this plasma the correct way to heal damaged tissue is also a complicated process. And that is why ultrasound imaging is used to help with the administering of the PRP injection. Ultrasound is extremely useful to determine the correct needle placement.

Evidence in Favour of PRP 

Platelet-rich Plasma as a form of regenerative medicine therapy has shown a lot of promise. This theory has shown some excellent results in the field of skin regeneration, wound healing, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, and many more.

But it is important to understand that PRP is not a one-stop solution. When looking into it as a means for treatment, your expectations should be based more on evidence than theories.

Many factors need to be considered before you can become a candidate for this treatment. But new and promising researches and evidence have startedturning up frequently in the past few years. So, this therapy should be seen with a more hopeful perspective.

PRP has the potential to revolutionise the medical field. Since it’s still in the developing stages, when considering it as a means of therapy, expectations need to be managed accordingly. But, because of the promising evidence, it has shown so far, optimism towards this therapy is rising.

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