CEPI5100: Analysis of Platelet-Rich Plasma in Tendon Healing

This report analyzes a clinical epidemiology assignment (CEPI5100) focusing on the efficacy of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) in healing tendons and ligaments. The assignment reviews a specific article that employed a meta-analysis to assess PRP's effectiveness, highlighting the use of PRISMA guidelines and peer-reviewed publications to ensure the study's validity. The report emphasizes the strengths of the article, including its unbiased approach, and the use of the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) to measure the progress of healing. The article's findings support the use of PRP as an effective treatment, particularly for conditions like lateral epicondylitis. The report concludes that the study provides a strong basis for clinical decision-making, suggesting PRP as a viable treatment option for patients with relevant injuries. The assignment brief included guidelines for submission, plagiarism, and assessment criteria.

Student number 1
Question 3
The article selected analyzes the efficacy of the platelet-rich therapies in the healing of tendons
and ligaments. The article focuses on performing a Meta-analysis to assess the efficacy. Based
on the methodology and the findings discussed in the article, this review will be suitable to make
a clinical decision. The primary strength of this article is that it is not biased. The study used
PRISMA guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systemic Reviews and Meta-Analysis
guidelines) in the methodology. This method involves conducting a comprehensive search in
order to find appropriate literature. Various databases were used to search for the literature, for
example, Cochrane, Pub Med and MEDLINE. Articles published in these journals are peer-
reviewed thus reducing any biases in the paper. In addition to selecting the articles from peer-
reviewed journals, an exclusion inclusion criterion was used. In the study under review, thirty-
seven articles were chosen for the literature review. These articles were all published within the
last ten years [1]
Another strength of this review is that the article reviews the long term and short term effects of
platelet-rich plasma in healing. The effects were analyzed using a visual analogue scale. The
Visual Analog Scale (VAS) was also used to measure the pain intensity of the participants in the
duration of the treatment. The participants had various injuries such as rotator cuff, lateral
epicondylitis, tendinopathy and the anterior cruciate ligament. Using this scale, the progress of
the healing was observed and recorded for analysis.
Based on these two strengths of eh review, it is possible to make a clinical decision. The results
of the paper showed that platelet-rich plasma was an effective treatment in healing tendons and

Student number 2
ligaments. For my patient who has an acute history of elbow lateral epicondylitis, this would be a
very effective treatment.

Student number 3
References
[1] Chen X, Jones IA, Park C, Vangsness Jr CT. The efficacy of platelet-rich plasma on tendon
and ligament healing: a systematic review and meta-analysis with bias assessment. The
American journal of sports medicine. 2018 Jul;46(8):2020-32.