Evaluation of the efficacy of platelet-rich plasma on healing of clean diabetic foot ulcers: A randomized clinical trial in Tehran, Iran

Background and aims: Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are among challenging hurdles both for the patient and the physician. There is a recent trend toward finding novel and clinically efficient modalities to treat this potentially hazardous complication of diabetes mellitus in a timely manner. Herein, we aim to appraise the efficacy of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) in healing of clean DFUs. Methods: 90 patients with clean DFUs consisting of 56 (62.2%) males and 34 (37.8%) females with mean age (+/-standard deviation) of 56.52 (+/-7.14) years were enrolled in this study between June 2017 and December 2018. They were randomly allocated into control group (47 patients who received conventional dressing along with silver sulfadiazine ointment twice daily), and case group (43 patients who received PRP gel twice weekly for 3 weeks). All the patients were followed up for 6 months. Results: Our study showed that PRP significantly increased the healing rate of DFUs regardless of the age (p-value: 0.0), gender (p-value: 0.0), or smoking (p-value: 0.0) and blood pressure (p-value: 0.0) status of patients, but it did not have a significant impact on the need for amputation (p-value: 0.11), level of amputation (p-value: 0.16), or the need for further treatments such as graft or angioplasty (p-value: 0.52). Conclusion: Regardless of the age, gender, or smoking and blood pressure status of patients, PRP can be efficiently used in diabetic patients to accelerate the healing rate of foot ulcers. (C) 2021 Diabetes India. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study demonstrates that PRP significantly enhances the healing rate of clean DFUs, regardless of age, gender, smoking, and blood pressure status. However, PRP does not have a significant impact on the need for amputation, level of amputation, or the need for further treatments.