Steven Heylen: Hydrolyzed Collagen Injections for Knee Osteoarthritis as a New Treatment Option
Steven Heylen, Orthopaedic surgeon, Knee and Shoulder Surgeon at OrthoClinic Lier, shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent article by Angel Alberto Heredia Sulbaran and Pablo Alonso Gomez, published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, adding:
“Injectables for knee OA … New place for hydrolysed collagen injections in my treatment protocol
Intra-articular injections of low-molecular-weight hydrolyzed collagen
This patient (admittedly n=1) had no positive effect of hyaluronic acid injections for patellofemoral OA.
Patient had a hematological contraindication for PRP treatment. After 3 hydrolysed collagen peptide injections, the pain improved by 70% now 3 months out from the last injection.
Collagen peptides are hypothesized “to provide structural reinforcement to the extracellular matrix and stimulate proregenerative cellular activity”.
As great as that sounds… scientific evidence however is scarce…
Randomized controlled trials remain very limited, but the safety profile has shown a low incidence of adverse immunogenic or inflammatory reactions.
These collagen injections in my practice offer a valuable alternative (biologic?) therapy for patients in whom platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is contraindicated and hyaluronic acid injections failed to provide enough improvement in symptoms.
I’ve had some pretty good results so far.
We need further clinical validation though!
I’m keeping patient data to report on later in time …
I’m very interested what some of the brightest minds in orthobiologics think about this?
‘Pro-regenerative’ or a lot of hot air?”
Title: Efficacy of hydrolyzed collagen injections compared to platelet-rich plasma and hyaluronic acid in the treatment of patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis: a retrospective clinical study
Authors: Angel Alberto Heredia Sulbaran, Pablo Alonso Gomez

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