Abstract

Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common causes of heel pain. This prospective study compared the efficacy of local injection of corticosteroids vs platelet-rich plasma (PRP) in the treatment of plantar fasciitis.
Methods: Patients were randomly allocated into 2 groups of Corticosteroid (Group A) and PRP (Group B) with 38 and 37 patients respectively. Patients were treated with local corticosteroid (cs) injection in group A and autologous PRP injection in group B. Clinical assessment was done prior to the injection and at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months following the injection, which included visual analog pain scale, subjective rating using the modified Roles and Maudsley score, functional outcome score by the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) ankle-hind foot scale. The mean age, sex, and body mass index of both groups were comparable.
Results: Post-injection we found that both PRP and CS significantly improved VAS, R&M, and AOFAS scores upto 1 year follow up compared to the pre-injection condition. In addition, CS has better pain relief and improved function in the short term (within the first month) compared to PRP; however, PRP has better pain relief and improved function in the long term (after 6 months) compared to the CS group.
Conclusion: The observations made in the present study suggest that the treatment of plantar fasciitis with steroid or PRP showed significant improvement in pain relief and functional outcome upto 1 year in both the groups but no significant difference between the 2 groups at 12 months of follow up. Corticosteroid showed better results in the short term (1-3 month), whereas PRP was found to be better in the long term follow up (6 months).