• Deniz Ipek, Murat Çalbıyık, and Sinan Zehir.
• Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Faculty of Medicine, Hitit University, Çorum, Turkey.
• Arch Iran Med. 2022 May 1; 25 (5): 319-323.

BackgroundAutologous conditioned serum (ACS) has been effectively used in treatment of osteoarthritis. However, less is known about its efficacy in tendon disorders. In this pilot study, we aimed to evaluate the short- and long-term effects of intratendinous injection of ACS in lateral epicondylitis (LE) of the elbow.MethodsThis prospective cohort included 42 patients with LE of the elbow who received 4 intratendinous injections of Orthokine® (Orthogen Lab Services GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany) under local anesthesia over 2 weeks in an outpatient setting. The clinical and functional outcomes of injections were evaluated at 3 months and 1 year after the procedure. Pain was assessed using a visual analog scale (VAS) and functional assessment was made using the Mayo Elbow Performance Score (MEPS) and Oxford Elbow Score (OES).ResultsThe pre-injection VAS score (7.07±1.19) improved significantly after the procedure at both 3 months (3.55±0.56, P<0.001) and 1 year (1.73±0.82, P<0.001). Similarly, the mean MEPSs were significantly different between baseline and 3 months (56.42±7.51 vs. 79.76±3.81, P<0.001) and between baseline and 1 year (56.42±7.51 vs. 94.28±4.06, P<0.001). The baseline OESs (84.17±6.07) also improved with intratendinous injection of ACS at 3 months (41.96±9.23, P<0.001) and 1 year (7.43±4.31, P<0.001). Only six patients (14.2%) had mild ecchymosis and swelling around the injection site which resolved spontaneously.ConclusionACS is a promising option for treatment of LE of the elbow, given its early onset of pain-relieving action and longlasting functional effects. These findings await confirmation by large-scale and prospective trials.© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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