Efficacy of Intralesional Platelet-rich Plasma in Treatment of Onychomycosis: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Onychomycosis is a challenging medical condition with limited response to oral antifungal drugs. Recent study demonstrated that platelet rich plasma (PRP) have immuno-enhancing and antimicrobial properties. It had been shown that platelet microbicidal proteins released after platelet activation demonstrate potent activities against many gram-negative, gram-positive, and fungal pathogens in vitro and in vivo studies.

In addition, white blood cell concentration in PRP was reported to be two to fourfold their normal level in whole blood. Neutrophils release myeloperoxidase which has a defensive action against fungi and bacteria, while lymphocytes and monocytes both are immunogenic cells (Badade et al., 2016). Recently, PRP was successfully used in the treatment of multiple recalcitrant plane warts (Abu El-Hamd et al., 2021), Also, PRP proved its efficacy in inhibiting periodontal pathogens such as P. gingivalis and A. actinomycetemcomitans (Badade et al., 2016). In addition, relevance of platelets for antifungal defenses might be suggested by the fact that thrombocytopenia represents a highly significant risk factor for fungal infections in post-transplant liver patients (Chang et al., 2000).

This study compares between intralesional RPR versus oral antifungal versus intralesional PRP + oral antifungal in the treatment of finger nail onychmycosis.