Clinical and Structural Outcomes After Arthroscopic Repair of Full-Thickness Rotator Cuff Tears With and Without Platelet-Rich Product Supplementation: A Meta-analysis and Meta-regression

This report has been verified by one or more authors of the original publication.

Eleven studies were included in this systematic review, and 8 of those studies were examined for meta-analysis. The purpose of this study was to compare clinical and structural outcomes between patients who received platelet-rich products following rotator cuff repair and those who did not. There was no significant difference between groups with respect to overall American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) scores, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) scores, Simple Shoulder Test (SST) scores, visual analog scale (VAS) scores, or overall retear rates. Meta-regression found that there was less of an increase in Constant-Murley score when liquid platelet-rich product was injected over the tendon surface than when applied at the tendon-bone interface, but this difference was not clinically important. According to leave-one-out analysis using a subgroup of 6 studies, when initial tear size was over 3 cm in anterior-posterior length, the group receiving platelet-rich product demonstrated lower retear rates following double-row repair. Further trials are needed to confirm this finding.