A Prospective Single-Donor Cellular Analysis of Two Different Intradiscal Autologous Platelet-Rich Plasma Systems

Purpose: Intradiscal autologous platelet rich plasma (PRP) is a therapy for patients with chronic discogenic lower back pain. Recent clinical studies suggest that a PRP preparation with a higher platelet concentration may improve clinical outcomes. The purpose of this study was to compare a newly designed PRP system (DiscCath™, LLC) with a traditional PRP system (Emcyte Corporation) to determine if higher platelet concentrations were attainable from the same donor.

Methods: Prospective single-donor cohort study at an outpatient interventional orthobiologics clinic involving 31 participants (17 male and 14 female) who supplied 64 distinct PRP samples (one patient’s PRP was analyzed on two separate treatment appointments). Baseline peripheral blood cell count data, and PRP cell count data that included absolute platelet count (ABS PLT), platelet fold increase (PLT Fold), white blood cell counts and differential (WBC; LYM, MON, GRA), and hematocrit percentage (HCT).

Results: DiscCath™ produced a PRP product with a statistically higher ABS PLT (6.95 vs 5.65 billion platelets) and higher PLT Fold (15.92X vs 12.48X) when compared to EmCyte. DiscCath™ also produced a PRP with a higher ABS WBC (44.63 vs 41.86 million) and a lower HCT (10.30 vs 11.54 percent) when compared to EmCyte, which did not achieve statistical significance.

Conclusion: The DiscCath™ PRP System concentrated platelets to higher levels than the Emcyte PRP System. This may have clinical implications in optimizing the intradiscal treatment of patients with degenerative disc disease. Clinical studies are needed to evaluate if the DiscCath™ PRP System improves clinical outcomes in intradiscal PRP therapy.

Keywords: Platelet-rich plasma, Intradiscal, Platelets, Systems, Single-Donor