Background: The use of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been suggested in order to increase the rate of bone deposition when sites are augmented prior to or in conjunction with dental implant placement.
Purpose: The goal of this study was to investigate whether the addition of PRP to xenogeneic bone grafts would increase the rate of bone formation in dogs.
Materials and methods: Ninety endosseous dental implants were inserted in the mandibles of nine hound dogs. Subsequently, mesial and distal three-wall periimplant defects were surgically created. Defects were randomly assigned to three groups: demineralized freeze-dried bone graft plus platelet-rich plasma (DFDBG plus PRP), demineralized freeze-dried bone graft alone (DFDBG), and no treatment. Postsurgically each dog received a series of three fluorescent labels for estimation of bone cell activity at baseline and during different stages of healing, with particular attention to the bone formation rate per tissue volume (BFR/TV). Animals were sacrificed at 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months, and specimens were subjected to analysis by fluorescence microscopy. Treatment effects were evaluated with analysis of variance models.
Results: Overall, the average BFR/TV differed by treatment although this difference approached only minimal statistical significance (p = .057). The largest difference occurred between periimplant defects treated with DFDBG only and defects that were not treated (mean percentage BFR/TV, 0.0720% vs 0.0994%). There was no evidence of an overall treatment effect (p = .27) for the mineral apposition rate (MAR) values. The data also suggest a consistent variability in the bone formation parameters among the three groups at different healing points.
Conclusion: In this animal model the addition of PRP to xenogeneic bone grafts did not demonstrate evidence of faster bone formation during healing. However, limitations of the histologic technique possibly played a negative role in the assessment of bone formation parameters.