Purpose: Identify practices in use of Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) within primary care sports medicine practices compared to what is supported in the literature.

Background: PRP is a common treatment for musculoskeletal treatments. Efficacy is limited to tendinopathies and osteoarthritis. Little is known about it's utilization practices in MMP sports medicine community.

Methods: Retrospective Cohort Study using deidentified data from records of patients who received PRP injections (using procedure coding) in two sports medicine clinics from 12/2015 to 06/2019. Data included patient demographics, associated diagnoses with PRP, and medical conditions/medications that met exclusion criteria commonly in PRP research. Simple descriptive statistics were calculated for analysis. Results: 391 PRP procedures were performed in the study period with 428 total associated diagnoses. The top diagnoses associated with PRP were arthritis (124, 29%), predominantly arthritis of the knee (99, 23%) and tendinopathies (94, 22%) with majority of total tendinopathies involving the gluteus medius/minimus (34, 8%). The third most common indication was chronic pain (78, 18%). 98 patients (25%) had at least one comorbidity documented that met exclusion criteria listed in previous PRP research. The most commonly listed of these was Heart Disease (36, 9%), followed by Type II Diabetes Mellitis (21, 5%). Further, 115 patients (29%) were on daily medications excluded in PRP research, most commonly aspirin (65, 17%), followed by warfarin/direct anti-coagulants (30, 8%).

Conclusions: PRP in our study was used in majority for the most well-studied indications in PRP research (arthritis and tendinopathies). However, there was a high percentage of non-specific indications (e.g chronic pain) for which PRP was utilized in the practices. Further, patients often had comorbidities or were prescribed medications that met exclusion criteria in PRP research. Future study could identify whether presence of exclusion criteria impacts outcomes.