Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy (PRP)

Hi,

I am Dr. Deepam Shah, Dermatologist. Today I will talk about PRP therapy. This is a very talked about the treatment which you might have heard on various platforms. It is very much in the limelight. It is not only used in dermatology but also in various fields like orthopedics, physiotherapy. So, I will discuss PRP in detail. Let's discuss the mechanism. How does it act? The entire treatment is based on platelets which are the white cells. They have a lot of growth factor-like endothelin, vascular endothelial, platelet drive growth factor and many. So, once we extract the platelets and give it to the area which is needed, it gives a boost to the area in which we are going to inject. What is the indication we look at in PRP therapy?

So, the first and the most common indication is hair. There are patients who suffer from androgenetic alopecia in a variety of grades, patients of hair thinning and hair fall, even in post-transplantation patients, we give the PRP treatment. 2nd, we come to the skin part. In the skin, it is used basically for cosmetic, anti-aging, anti-pigmentation, skin tightening because it boosts collagen regeneration, for skin lightening. Other then this it is being used for ulcerative conditions. So many patients have wounds and ulcer on the various parts of the body. So, in such cases, it is injected or applied topically and results in healing fastly. The procedure is very simple. We take out around 10-15 ml of the patient's blood and then we centrifuge it.

We separate the component from the blood. Then we divide the platelet into platelet-rich plasma. We increase the same by 4 times. After removing the platelets, we inject the same on the required area. If a patient is suffering any hair thinning or alopecia problem, we inject the same in the scalp area. If a patient has any skin problem, then we inject on the affected area of the face. How often do we repeat the PRP session? It can be repeated on an interval of 4 weeks. The minimum gap should be of 4 weeks and then we can do multiple sessions. In hair, generally, 4-5 sessions are recommended. For skin tightening and skin pigmentation, we generally recommend 3-4 sessions at an interval of a month.

But in ulcerative condition, we do it more often. At the interval of 1-2 weeks, PRP is recommended. We come to the final thing which is side-effects. Since it is a natural treatment because we take your own blood so it is highly sophisticated and without any side-effects because platelets are driven from your own body. The only side-effect can be the mild pain postoperatively which last for around 12-14 hours. So, this is the normal feeling when you inject something in your skin. So, this is about PRP. And while doing the treatment, we give local anesthesia and then we give PRP wherever it is required. If you have any query, you can contact me through Lybrate.

Thank You!