This is an educational aid for licensed healthcare professionals. Please read and accept the terms below.
It is not medical advice and not a medical device. It produces no clinical recommendation.
Platelet-rich plasma is not approved or cleared for treating osteoarthritis by the FDA or any comparable authority known to the author.
Nothing here states or implies that platelet-rich plasma regenerates cartilage, reverses osteoarthritis, or prevents joint replacement. No such effect has been demonstrated in humans.
The evidence is contested. The largest and best-blinded randomized trial found no difference from saline.
It stores and transmits nothing. Do not enter identifiable patient information.
Content is current only to 16 September 2026 and must be independently re-verified.
Read the full terms of use (15 clauses)
Not medical adviceThis tool is an educational aid for licensed healthcare professionals. It does not provide medical advice, does not diagnose or treat any condition, and does not create a clinician–patient relationship. It must never be used as the sole basis for any clinical decision.
Personal views only — no employer, institutional, or organizational endorsementThis tool was prepared independently by the author, outside the scope of any employment, consultancy, or contractual engagement, using only publicly available information. It does not represent, and must not be attributed to, the opinions, positions, or policies of any current or former employer, client, institution, university, hospital, professional society, standards body, or regulatory authority. No confidential or proprietary information was used. No endorsement by any such entity is stated or implied.
Not a medical deviceThis tool is not a medical device and is not clinical decision-support software. It has not been cleared, approved, registered, or certified by any regulatory authority. It performs no diagnosis, generates no treatment recommendation, and produces no output intended to direct clinical management.
No recommendation is producedEvery screen in this tool organizes information for structured thinking. Nothing it displays constitutes a recommendation for or against treating any individual patient. All clinical judgment remains with the treating clinician.
Platelet-rich plasma is not approved for osteoarthritisPlatelet-rich plasma is not approved or cleared for the treatment of osteoarthritis of any joint by the United States Food and Drug Administration or by any comparable authority known to the author. Where preparation devices carry regulatory clearances, those clearances are for preparing the product and for indications other than intra-articular treatment of osteoarthritis.
No claim of cartilage regeneration or disease modificationNo content in this tool should be read as stating or implying that platelet-rich plasma regenerates cartilage, restores joint structure, reverses osteoarthritis, modifies the structural course of the disease, or prevents or avoids joint replacement. No such effect has been demonstrated in humans.
Evidence is contested and time-limitedThe evidence summarized here is mixed. The largest and best-blinded randomized trial in knee osteoarthritis found no difference from saline. Professional bodies disagree materially. All content is current only to the evidence cut-off of 16 September 2026 and must be independently re-verified before it is relied upon.
Thresholds and values are illustrativeAny dose threshold, minimal clinically important difference, response threshold, or interval displayed is drawn from published literature for reference only. None is a standard of care. Users must select thresholds appropriate to their own population and state them in advance.
Jurisdictional variationRegulatory status, coverage, scope-of-practice rules, consent requirements, and professional obligations differ materially between jurisdictions and change over time. Nothing here is legal advice. Obtain jurisdiction-specific legal and regulatory advice before establishing, marketing, or billing for a platelet-rich plasma service.
Product neutralityAny named preparation system, device, or product appears only to describe published studies or regulatory records accurately. Naming is descriptive, not an endorsement, comparison, or recommendation. The author has no financial interest in any platelet-rich plasma preparation system, device, or service.
No data collection, transmission, or storageThis tool runs entirely in your browser. It contains no analytics, no tracking, no cookies, and no network requests. Nothing you enter is stored, saved, or transmitted anywhere. Closing or reloading the page discards everything. Do not enter identifiable patient information.
Accuracy and completenessReasonable care has been taken, but no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to accuracy, completeness, currency, or fitness for any purpose. Errors may be present. Please report any error to abdu94@gmail.com.
Limitation of liabilityTo the fullest extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all liability for any loss, injury, or damage, direct or consequential, arising from any use of or reliance on this tool.
User responsibilityThe user is solely responsible for all clinical decisions and for compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, professional standards, scope-of-practice rules, institutional policies, and informed-consent requirements.
AcceptanceBy continuing you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional, that you have read and accepted these terms, and that you will use this tool only as an educational aid alongside independent clinical judgment.
NOT MEDICAL ADVICE · NOT A MEDICAL DEVICE · NO CLINICAL RECOMMENDATION IS PRODUCED · PRP IS NOT APPROVED FOR OSTEOARTHRITIS
Platelet-Rich Plasma for Degenerative Osteoarthritis
Dr. Hafez Selim, MD, PhD · Selim Medical Press · evidence cut-off 16 September 2026
Educational aid for licensed healthcare professionals. Not medical advice. Not a medical device. No recommendation is produced. PRP is not approved for osteoarthritis.
Candidacy screener
Works through the selection sequence in seven steps. It organizes information; it does not decide. Every item requires clinical judgment, and the output is a structured summary, not a recommendation.
Step 1 · Absolute stop conditions
If any item is present, do not inject.Address the condition first and re-screen.
Step 2 · Joint and stage
Step 3 · Adequacy of core treatment
Sequencing is not optional.Both ESSKA consensus documents restrict any favorable position to patients who remain symptomatic despite conservative care, and the AAPM&R public summary describes consideration only for selected mild-to-moderate knee OA with persistent symptoms after conservative care. Exercise and weight management have larger effect sizes and lower cost than any injectable.
Step 4 · Pain phenotype
Check features that are present. A patient with several is unlikely to benefit from a joint-directed injection regardless of structural stage.
Step 5 · Relative and precautionary exclusions
Step 6 · Consent and disclosure
All eight must be covered and recorded.
Step 7 · Practice readiness
Product characterization and dose calculation
The absolute platelet dose is the compositional descriptor most closely corresponding to what the joint receives, and it is the one least often recorded. In one survey of practicing physicians, complete blood counts were not ordered in 93.3% of cases — meaning the dose was unknown.
Enrichment factor
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Absolute platelet dose
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Platelet recovery (yield)
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Course total so far
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Leukocyte classification
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How the dose is calculatedAbsolute platelet dose (×109) = product concentration (×109/L) × injected volume (mL) ÷ 1000. Use the volume actually injected, not the volume prepared; syringe and needle dead space retain part of the product. Dose-stratified meta-analyses disagree about where benefit levels off: one proposed a threshold above 10×109, another found no added pain benefit above 10×109 (see the Evidence tab, filter “Dose question”), and at least one characterized cohort found non-responders receiving a higher dose than responders. Use the calculation to know what you are delivering, not to assume that more is better.
How recovery is calculatedPlatelet recovery (yield, capture efficiency) % = (product volume prepared × product concentration) ÷ (blood volume × baseline count) × 100. Illustration: (6 mL × 900) ÷ (30 mL × 240) × 100 = 75%. Pair each volume with a count measured in the same state: if the baseline count comes from a separate tube without the kit's anticoagulant, enter the blood volume drawn excluding anticoagulant. If the product count exceeds the analyzer's validated range, dilute as its instructions direct and correct for the dilution. Recovery describes device and operator performance; it is not a clinical outcome or a target.
Expected yield before preparation
An estimate for planning the draw, made before any product exists. It depends entirely on the recovery rate you enter, so use your own device's measured recovery. After preparation, measure the product and record the measured values above; this estimate does not replace them.
Expected platelets in the PRP
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Expected PRP concentration
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Expected concentration factor
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Expected dose, planned injection
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How the estimate is calculatedExpected platelets (×109) = baseline count (×109/L) × blood volume (mL) ÷ 1000 × recovery. Expected concentration = expected platelets × 1000 ÷ PRP volume. Expected concentration factor = recovery × blood volume ÷ PRP volume. Illustration with a 60% recovery: 250 × 54 ÷ 1000 × 0.60 = 8.1 ×109; 8.1 × 1000 ÷ 7 = 1157 ×109/L; 0.60 × 54 ÷ 7 = 4.6×. The illustration's recovery is an example, not a typical or recommended value.
Documentation record
The fourteen fields that make a subsequent non-response interpretable. Nothing entered here is stored or transmitted; use Print record to produce a paper copy for the notes.
Evidence explorer
Every entry is a real, verified PubMed record. Filter by joint, study type, comparator, or direction of finding. Direction describes what the study reported, not an endorsement.
Read the comparator column.Superiority over hyaluronic acid is a weak claim, because hyaluronic acid performs close to placebo in large blinded trials. Intra-articular saline is not inert either: it exceeds the minimal clinically important difference for WOMAC at six months. The strongest designs are those blinding participant, injector and assessor against a placebo control.
Study
Joint
Type
Comparator
Blinding
Direction
Outcome tracker
Declare the threshold before treatment, apply it afterward. A threshold chosen after the result is known is not a threshold.
There is no single MCID.Values differ by derivation method, population, baseline severity, and timepoint — the trials cited in the accompanying book use values from 1.6 to 3.94 on the WOMAC Likert pain subscale alone. Choose one, record its source, and apply it consistently.
Declared in advance
Scores
Objective corroboration at the primary timepoint
About this tool
This is the free companion to Platelet-Rich Plasma for Degenerative Osteoarthritis: Evidence, Clinical Applications, Safety, and Treatment Protocols by Dr. Hafez Selim, MD, PhD (Selim Medical Press). It implements the patient-selection framework, the documentation minimum, the evidence base, and the outcome-measurement discipline set out in that book.
It runs entirely in your browser. There are no analytics, no tracking, no cookies, and no network requests. Nothing you type is stored or transmitted. Reloading the page discards everything. Do not enter identifiable patient information.
Evidence cut-off: 16 September 2026. Guideline positions, regulatory provisions, coverage determinations, and device clearances all change. Re-verify before relying on anything here.
Corrections and error reports are welcome and will be acted on: abdu94@gmail.com.
Full terms of use (15 clauses)
Not medical adviceThis tool is an educational aid for licensed healthcare professionals. It does not provide medical advice, does not diagnose or treat any condition, and does not create a clinician–patient relationship. It must never be used as the sole basis for any clinical decision.
Personal views only — no employer, institutional, or organizational endorsementThis tool was prepared independently by the author, outside the scope of any employment, consultancy, or contractual engagement, using only publicly available information. It does not represent, and must not be attributed to, the opinions, positions, or policies of any current or former employer, client, institution, university, hospital, professional society, standards body, or regulatory authority. No confidential or proprietary information was used. No endorsement by any such entity is stated or implied.
Not a medical deviceThis tool is not a medical device and is not clinical decision-support software. It has not been cleared, approved, registered, or certified by any regulatory authority. It performs no diagnosis, generates no treatment recommendation, and produces no output intended to direct clinical management.
No recommendation is producedEvery screen in this tool organizes information for structured thinking. Nothing it displays constitutes a recommendation for or against treating any individual patient. All clinical judgment remains with the treating clinician.
Platelet-rich plasma is not approved for osteoarthritisPlatelet-rich plasma is not approved or cleared for the treatment of osteoarthritis of any joint by the United States Food and Drug Administration or by any comparable authority known to the author. Where preparation devices carry regulatory clearances, those clearances are for preparing the product and for indications other than intra-articular treatment of osteoarthritis.
No claim of cartilage regeneration or disease modificationNo content in this tool should be read as stating or implying that platelet-rich plasma regenerates cartilage, restores joint structure, reverses osteoarthritis, modifies the structural course of the disease, or prevents or avoids joint replacement. No such effect has been demonstrated in humans.
Evidence is contested and time-limitedThe evidence summarized here is mixed. The largest and best-blinded randomized trial in knee osteoarthritis found no difference from saline. Professional bodies disagree materially. All content is current only to the evidence cut-off of 16 September 2026 and must be independently re-verified before it is relied upon.
Thresholds and values are illustrativeAny dose threshold, minimal clinically important difference, response threshold, or interval displayed is drawn from published literature for reference only. None is a standard of care. Users must select thresholds appropriate to their own population and state them in advance.
Jurisdictional variationRegulatory status, coverage, scope-of-practice rules, consent requirements, and professional obligations differ materially between jurisdictions and change over time. Nothing here is legal advice. Obtain jurisdiction-specific legal and regulatory advice before establishing, marketing, or billing for a platelet-rich plasma service.
Product neutralityAny named preparation system, device, or product appears only to describe published studies or regulatory records accurately. Naming is descriptive, not an endorsement, comparison, or recommendation. The author has no financial interest in any platelet-rich plasma preparation system, device, or service.
No data collection, transmission, or storageThis tool runs entirely in your browser. It contains no analytics, no tracking, no cookies, and no network requests. Nothing you enter is stored, saved, or transmitted anywhere. Closing or reloading the page discards everything. Do not enter identifiable patient information.
Accuracy and completenessReasonable care has been taken, but no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to accuracy, completeness, currency, or fitness for any purpose. Errors may be present. Please report any error to abdu94@gmail.com.
Limitation of liabilityTo the fullest extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all liability for any loss, injury, or damage, direct or consequential, arising from any use of or reliance on this tool.
User responsibilityThe user is solely responsible for all clinical decisions and for compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, professional standards, scope-of-practice rules, institutional policies, and informed-consent requirements.
AcceptanceBy continuing you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional, that you have read and accepted these terms, and that you will use this tool only as an educational aid alongside independent clinical judgment.