Abstract

Background: People will get plantar fasciitis or fasciopathy nearly 10% in their lifetime, which affects the plantar fascia and causes abnormal thickening and structure. Most patients will be healed within 6 to 12 months, however other people can experience symptoms for much longer. The main aim of this study was to compare the effects of corticosteroid and platelet rich plasma (PRP) for the treatment of plantar fasciitis. Methods: The present study was conducted in department of orthopaedics at tertiary care centre Chengalpattu district. In this study, Sampling for the selection of study subjects with Randomisation for the allocation of interventions. Total of 60 both in patients and out patients with plantar fasciitis with the age group between 30 to 50 years, were treated with corticosteroids and platelet rich plasma (PRP), for 18 months. Thirty patients were treated with platelet rich plasma. The platelet rich plasma (PRP) was prepared from venous whole blood. The other thirty patients were treated with corticosteroid injection. The primary analysis included visual analogue scale (VAS) pain scores and the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) Ankle-Hind foot outcome scores. Results: The PRP group was more often successfully treated than the corticosteroid group. When baseline VAS and AOFAS scores were compared with the scores at 12 weeks follow up, both groups showed improvement across time (intention-to-treat principle). The mean VAS and AOFAS heel pain scores measured 6 weeks after treatment were 77.5 in steroid group and 87.5 in PRP group, and the scores in both groups were significantly lower when compared with pre-treatment levels.  PRP treatment was more effective resulted higher improvement in VAS score and in AOFAS score at 6 weeks as compared to steroid injection (P value<0.001). Conclusion: Treatment of patients with plantar fasciitis with PRP reduces pain and increases function significantly, exceeding the effect of corticosteroid injection at the end of 6 weeks. Hence, we concluded that PRP injection is more effective in resulting pain relief and function as compared to corticosteroid injection.