Curettage and PRP combination improves recovery rate in pilonidal sinus disease

The combination of curettage with platelet-rich plasma technique has a low recurrence rate, quick recovery, and little time away from work, says an article published in Diseases of the Colon & Rectum Journal. 

Pilonidal illness is a chronic disorder that mostly affects young people, and recovering from the surgeries needed to cure it takes time away from work. As a result, research is still being done to find the best therapy. In order to assess early and late outcomes of 2 minimally invasive therapy approaches used to treat pilonidal illness, Baris Sevinç and colleagues carried out this study.

The location of this investigation, an outpatient clinic in Turkey, was a parallel group randomized clinical trial. Pilonidal disease sufferers were assessed for the research and enrolled if they satisfied the requirements and provided informed permission. Patients in the platelet-rich plasma group received treatment using curettage and platelet-rich plasma gel after intervention. Curettage combined with crystalline phenol was used to treat the patients in the phenol group. The time it took to heal was the main research end point, while the recurrence rate was the secondary result.

The key findings of this study were:

96% of patients in the platelet-rich plasma group saw healing after just one application. 

Only 53% of patients in the phenol group experienced healing after a single treatment. 

In the platelet-rich plasma group, healing took place on average in 6 (4–14) as opposed to 10 (5–42) days (p 0.001). The average healing difference was 5.8 days (95% CI: 4.27-7.38). 

A 4% recurrence rate was seen in the platelet-rich plasma group after a mean follow-up of 43.1 months, compared to a 12% recurrence rate in the phenol group (95% CI, 0.024-0.251).

Despite the study's randomized prospective design, neither the participants nor the researchers were kept in the dark.

Reference: 

Sevinç, B., Damburaci, N., & Karahan, Ö. (2022). Comparison of Curettage Plus Platelet-Rich Plasma Gel and Curettage Plus Phenol Application in Treatment of Pilonidal Sinus Disease: A Randomized Trial. In Diseases of the Colon & Rectum (Vol. 65, Issue 5, pp. 735–741). Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). https://doi.org/10.1097/dcr.0000000000002082