A currently unregulated medical procedure done by a handful of athletes is being put under a little scrutiny. It’s a procedure that does exactly what Human Growth Hormone allegedly has done for MLB stars: it dramatically speeds up recovery from injury. And it’s a procedure that two Pittsburgh Steelers in particular apparently did two weeks before the Super Bowl.
(Hines Ward at the Super Bowl: Brought to you by PPT.)
According to a story in THE NEW YORK TIMES by Alan Schwarz, Steelers stars Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu both used a controversial procedure called Platelet-rich Plasma Therapy before last month’s Big Game. What does PPT do, you ask? Well, when the platelet-rich blood is re-injected into an injured region of the player’s body, it speeds up the healing process and, in some cases, may even allow them to avoid surgery.
So how is the result of PPT any different from the result of injured athletes taking HGH? It isn’t, except for the fact that it doesn’t come with the other growth side effects of HGH. It’s also entirely legal and, if its rampant spread throughout the professional and amateur ranks is any indication, it may soon be highly encouraged for any athletes who would otherwise be facing surgery.
“This could be a method to stimulate wound healing in areas that are not well-vascularized, like ligaments and tendons,” said Dr. Gerjo van Osch, a researcher in the department of orthopedics at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “I call it a growth-factor cocktail — that’s how I explain it.”
Insurance companies call it a lifesaver. Even though PPT is currently uneffective for some 20-40 percent of the cases in which it’s used, the procedure only costs about $2,000. Compare that with the $10,000 to $15,000 spent on a typical ligament surgery, not to mention the attending recovery from it, and you’re dealing with a relatively small risk for what could be a huge financial reward.
(That’s platelet-rich blood in a photo for the NEW YORK TIMES.)
Still, there are serious ethical questions to be raised here, as EXAMINER.COM’s Sarah Shorno, she of occasional DEADSPIN fame points out. What’s the distinction between PPT and HGH? And why should we treat the re-injection of blood into an injured area any differently than the injection of additional blood, as cyclists do and are crucified for in the Tour de France, et. al?
Perhaps we shouldn’t. After all, both HGH and PPT involve injections. Both PPT and re-cicled blood involve boosting blood cell counts in one’s body via transferring one’s own blood.
Yet PPT will almost surely never be attacked the way HGH and EPO have been, for one simple reason: It saves patients a ton of money. Clearly, PPT is going to be prescribed to patients across the country with greater regularity in the coming years. That’s not going to stop, because there aren’t any illegal substances involved in the procedure. Because of that, the professional leagues would look almost ludicrous banning the procedure outright if it was deemed safe and appropriate for the rest of society.
So who’s going to stop the spread of PPT? No one. What Ward and Polamalu did before the Super Bowl was perfectly legal and ethical. And it’s sure to be used plenty of times in the coming baseball season: The Dodgers were able to get Takashi Saito fit for the playoffs last fall by using PPT to avoid elbow surgery. If it’s working for one team, others will almost always follow, and there’s no way this is any exception.
5:50 pm on February 17th, 2009
Here's where the lines between unfair performance enhancement and medical treatment begin to blur. I see no problem with the platelet procedure. On the other hand, HGH and other drugs can be used to help with healing and muscle repair, reducing the risk of injury to athletes. Hell, anti-inflammatories are performance-enhancing, when you get down to it.
5:50 pm on February 17th, 2009
wow, talk about a reach.
6:12 pm on February 17th, 2009
My point is simply that there are some legitimate medical uses for some performance enhancing drugs. Steroids taken one way can bulk you up, but steroids taken another way can help you get past wear and tear. It's going to be difficult to figure out where to draw the line. We could easily see pro athletes getting inferior medical treatment as standard medical procedures make increasing use of banned substances.
6:28 pm on February 17th, 2009
Cameron,
Do you ever use "spellcheck"?
11:17 pm on February 17th, 2009
There are potential hazards for blood doping. I'm not entirely sure what they all are, but they're out there, and, I believe, almost exclusively heart-related. EPO, HGH and blood doping all exist for medical reasons, but overuse can tax the heart (and provide an unnatural advantage in an athletic competition). When athletes start dying, like they have in cycling, we will see regulation–albeit weak. In the last few years, a handful of cyclists and other European athletes have died of mysterious heart attacks and previously unknown heart conditions. Interestingly, these have coincided with an increased use of EPO and blood doping.
11:22 am on February 18th, 2009
Here's my question… What's the story here. The way this is written makes it sound like they're doing doping, when it sounds to me like it's an acceptable medical treatment. New, but legal. Also, have any other players in the NFL rec'd these treatments?
And yes I am a Steeler's fan.
1:05 pm on February 18th, 2009
How can taking your own blood out and injecting it back in be considered doping? It doesn't sound like any additional foreign substances are added during the procedure.
1:19 pm on February 18th, 2009
Is this the "HGH" that 30 percent of NFL players use according to Dana Stubblefield's report? I guess the NFL's drug testing really is a good program, although there's always room for improvement. Commish Goodell mentioned as much. That's something else that makes Goodell a good commissioner. He's candid with the fans. How often does Bud Selig do live chats online with baseball fans?
2:44 pm on February 18th, 2009
CHEATERS!!! This is just a better way of roiding!!!
4:22 am on February 21st, 2009
This is a ridiculously lame article published by someone who either has too much time on their hands, likes to reach for ineresting topics and make them sound controversial, or is just a wannabe investigative reporter. I knew someone like you in college…they were shunned across campus. Enjoy writing like an inbred hillbilly.
4:25 am on February 21st, 2009
And B=Mac….Cheating? Really?A "better way of roiding"? REALLY??No foreign substances…no human manufactured medicines being injected…Nothing man-made…Look up "steroids" and tell me what it says about its' physical make-up. Then get back to us all and report how this is like being 'roided up.What a loser. Obviously either a whiny Seahwaks fan or a 'Cards fan….Deal. It's a perfectly legitimate procedure, and perfectly natural.
8:24 pm on February 22nd, 2009
so i guess you go from sports writer to medical ethics specialist? you obviously have no clue what you are talking about. first off those players publicly spoke about how the felt the procedure DIDNT help them in such a short term use situation. 2nd, you imply polamalu did it right before the game when he did it earlier in the season. 3rd, the main reason why using HGH (& other similar things) is illegal is because it will lead to adverse long term out comes for the players that use it. injecting a small amt of your own fluids will not. 4th, the difference between not allowing players to blood dope in cycling compared to the nfl is that in cycling it will give you a huge advantage over your natural capabilities because that sport is all about endurance (oxygen carrying capacity of blood). there is more to nfl than endurance, such as strength. 5th, the method works through greatly increase platlet counts and barely touches RBC counts. if you're going to even IMPLY someone cheated, at least get your facts right.