A person suffering from tennis elbow may not have to look any further than his or her own body for the most effective treatment, according to a study published in the November issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine. Specially prepared blood cells taken from the patient re-injected into the tendon of the affected elbow provides more relief than other non-surgical therapies, concludes researchers Allan Mishra and Terri Pavelko, of the Menlo Medical Clinic at Stanford University Medical Center in Menlo Park, CA. "There is very little risk here; we are using the patient's own blood taken right in the doctor's office, and the whole procedure takes less than an hour," says Mishra. The results of the small, pilot study indicate the therapy is as effective as surgery.

You don't have to play tennis, of course, to come down with painful tennis elbow. It's also common among people whose activities require strong gripping or repetitive wrist motions. Tendonitis is a degeneration of the tendon above the elbow that controls the movements of the wrist and hand. Treatments such as rest, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, bracing, physical therapy, and cortisone injections are often used but recent studies have questioned their efficacy. Those who suffer longest may resort to surgical repair of the tendon when all other therapies have failed.

The researchers looked at patients with persistent tendonitis that had not responded to non-surgical treatment. The patients received a one-time injection of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) into their affected elbow. (Platelets are blood components responsible for the formation of clots in response to injury, but also contain powerful growth factors; plasma is the liquid portion of the blood.) Blood was drawn from a patient's unaffected arm and spun down in the physician's office lab to separate the blood's components. Approximately a half-teaspoon of this material--over 500% richer in platelets than whole blood--was then injected into the tendon of the sore elbow.