title: Platelet-rich plasma, an adjuvant biological therapy to assist peripheral nerve repair.
abstract: Therapies such as direct tension-free microsurgical repair or transplantation of a nerve autograft, are nowadays used to treat traumatic peripheral nerve injuries (PNI), focused on the enhancement of the intrinsic regenerative potential of injured axons. However, these therapies fail to recreate the suitable cellular and molecular microenvironment of peripheral nerve repair and in some cases, the functional recovery of nerve injuries is incomplete. Thus, new biomedical engineering strategies based on tissue engineering approaches through molecular intervention and scaffolding offer promising outcomes on the field. In this sense, evidence is accumulating in both, preclinical and clinical settings, indicating that platelet-rich plasma products, and fibrin scaffold obtained from this technology, hold an important therapeutic potential as a neuroprotective, neurogenic and neuroinflammatory therapeutic modulator system, as well as enhancing the sensory and motor functional nerve muscle unit recovery.
authors.affiliation: Arthroscopic Surgery Unit, Hospital Vithas San José, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Mikel
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9992-6927
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Ane
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Garate
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Diego
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0494-0804
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Delgado
authors.affiliation: BTI Biotechnology Institute, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
authors.forename: Sabino
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Padilla
keywords: Schwann cells; axons, platelet-rich plasma; biomolecules; fibrin; intraneural; microenvironment; perineural; peripheral nerve injuries (PNI); scaffold