--Advantages of Platelet Gel
For the past 12 years, Ross A. Clevens, MD, has specialized in facial plastic surgery. Dr. Clevens lectures nationally on achieving faster healing and recognizing less bruising and discomfort when platelet gel is used during surgery.
At the Center for Facial Cosmetic Surgery in Melbourne and Merritt Island, FL. Dr. Clevens has used the gel extensively (in an estimated 300 to 500 cases per year) and sees evidence of less bruising and swelling after nasal surgery, eyelid lift and facelift or local and regional flap reconstructive surgery. In addition, patients may also have decreased discomfort after their surgery, Dr. Clevens noted.
The advantage to platelet gel, said Dr. Clevens, is that you are introducing into the wound a higher-than-native concentration of growth factors and angiogenesis factors, and other factors involved in the coagulation cascade, that facilitate the healing. Although the wound-healing cascade is still not completely understood, laboratory-based research has shown that platelets play a key role in hemostasis and wound healing. When activated, platelets release secretory proteins which drive the complex wound-healing cascade. Many studies have established that platelet concentration procedures can cause a three- to eight-fold increase in platelet concentration ratios.
Clinical use of platelet rich plasma has been reported in the spine, periodontal, cardiovascular, and craniofacial literature. In the orthopedic surgery literature, platelet gel has been used to increase the take of bone grafts. Clearly, said Dr. Clevens, platelet gel is growing in popularity in the orthopedic surgery world. When he performs laser skin resurfacing, Dr. Clevens also has seen a faster re-epithelialization rate when using the gel. Several studies, he noted, have demonstrated a markedly faster rate of re-epithelialization-sometimes as much as 40% faster, he said.
Results reported in other specialties appear to demonstrate strong justification for the use of PRP. For example, patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass given PRP used 65% less banked blood products during their treatment; grafts for mandibular bone augmentation matured faster with PRP; diabetic foot ulcers treated with PRP were 14% to 59% more likely to heal; and patients with decubitous ulcers who were given PRP also had faster healing than those who did not receive PRP. 
Center For Facial Cosmetic Surgery | 1344 S. Apollo Blvd. Suite 100, | Melbourne, FL 32901 | 321.951.3223 or 1.888.438.3223