Why isn’t this treatment more accessible?
Have you heard about platelet-rich plasma or PRP? Neither have I. It’s a treatment that’s been around for years. Simply and relatively effective, its application is more widely known in the world of sports. History dates this treatment back to the 1970s where it was used in a study around wound healing. The 1980s showed PRP application in the dental field, followed by its application in orthopaedics and sports injuries in the 1990s.
So how does it work?
There’s four parts to our blood:
- Plasma: made up of 90% water, this is the liquid component to our blood,
- Platelets: smaller cell fragments that help with blood clots,
- White blood cells: help us fight infections and injuries, and
- Red blood cells: transport oxygen.
For women with low ovarian reserve who are trying to conceive, this could mean a significant decrease in assisted reproductive technology (ART) costs with an increase in conception success rates. Although the study was limited to those who have been trying for less than 3 years, intraovarian PRP injections could be a game changer. As concluded in this 2023 study from a team based out of Romania: “PRP administration seems to improve implantation, clinical pregnancy, chemical pregnancy, on-going pregnancy, live birth rates, and endometrial thickness in women with previous implantation failure.”
Wider application for women
The application of PRP treatment is helping women in a wide variety of use cases:
- High-risk women after Caesarean section showed faster wound healing times using this more therapeutic approach.
- Improving menstruation recovery rates of 60% of women had POI or poor ovarian response, 40% of menopausal women positively responded to PRP treatment and 80% of perimenopausal women had menstruation regularity.
- Patients with vesicovaginal fistula, the communication between the bladder and vagina, benefited from PRP injections during and after their Latzko procedure. “In all cases, the vaginal wall at the site of the procedure healed without any signs of scarring, redness, or granulosa tissue. Moreover, patients did not complain about any urination difficulties or urinary tract disorders.”
Based on: https://www.sunnysidebump.com/blog/this-plasma-treatment-is-increasing-the-ivf-odds-by-3x