An interesting working paper has surfaced from the Department of Management at Ca’ Foscari University Venice in Italy. The objective of the study was to try and analyze the cost effectiveness between two treatment options for osteoarthritis.
Unfortunately osteoarthritis will affect around 40% of the population of the United States. It’s a degenerative chronic joint disease that wears away the cartilage causing pain.
Osteoarthritis commonly develops in the hands, neck, lower back, knee and hip. The two treatment options that were highlighted in this working paper are Platelet Rich Plasma injection treatment, and Hyaluronic acid injection treatment.
Many papers have supported the use of PRP treatment to reduce pain and improve function in early stage knee osteoarthritis. Because of the positive data, the healthcare professionals in this study wanted to see if this type of treatment was cost-effective vs hyaluronic acid.
They concluded over a one year period, PRP treatment is a cost-effective form of treatment for OA. PRP is loaded with growth factors that have the potential to help speed up the healing process of many different conditions.
More and more physicians are utilizing this form of treatment even though it is not FDA approved. Patients have a tendency to favor this treatment because it’s your own body healing itself. To learn more about this cost analysis study please click here.
To learn more about what PRP can do to treat OA please click here.
