Journal Name: International Journal of Clinical Rheumatology

Are you or your patients undergo shoulder discomfort for an extended period? Rotator cuff tendinopathy (RCT) could be the major common cause then. People may experience various symptoms such as pain, stiffness, restriction of movements, followed by snapping sensation. The pain worsens during the night-time.

Even after going through conservative treatments such as activity modification, physical therapy, NSAIDs medication intake, and corticosteroid injections, there may not be a significant and consistent improvement clinically and functionally. Moreover, medications and steroid injections have several side effects. In that case, surgery proves to be the last resort.

However, do not think that surgery is the only resort. Medica Stem Cells clinic offers Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy to improve the healing process and tissue regeneration.

Are you wondering why we selectively offer PRP therapy to treat rotator cuff tendinopathy? Eager to know its effectiveness in terms of pain and function? Imagine if these are the research questions. How are you going to answer? Just a direct answer is not enough. The research evidence should systematically back up your answer or findings. This is where systematic review journal articles help!

The systematic review is a type of review where you will be collecting the last 10- or 15-years secondary research data that suits pre-specified criteria, analyse, and provide an evidence-based answer to a specified research question.

Systematic reviews help researchers or medical healthcare providers to stay updated about recent scientific updates. Unlike research articles, systematic reviews are a comprehensive year-wise collection of data. In a nutshell, you don’t have to refer to every article to stay updated or find the answer to your research question. Just by referring to a systematic review article is more than enough.

Finally, here is the systematic review article that answers your research question. Platelet-rich plasma therapy for shoulder tendinopathy: a systematic review article includes the secondary research findings of the last ten years. The researchers have compared PRP injections with the available conventional methods such as sham injection, dry needling, physiotherapy, NSAIDs, hyaluronic acid, and corticosteroids in RCT patients.