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Intra-articular cortisone injection provides little pain relief in patients with FAI
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SAN ANTONIO — Researchers found no significant pain reduction in most patients at 14 days after intraarticular injection of cortisone for femoroacetabular impingement and labral tears, according to a study presented at the Arthroscopic Association of North America Annual Meeting.
“Intraarticular cortisone injection has limited clinical benefit in 63% of the patients with symptomatic FAI and labral tear,” Bruce A. Levy, MD, said here.
Levy and his team conducted a retrospective study of 35 patients who underwent arthroscopic surgery for femoroacetabular impingement and labral tears between 2008 and 2012. The patients received anesthetic plus methylprednisolone (21 patients), triamcinolone (12 patients) or betamethasone (2 patients). They recorded the numerical rating scale (NRS) for pain at pre-injection, immediately post-injection and at the 14-day follow-up. Patients were a mean age of 34 years old. They deemed a change of 2 points on the NRS scale as clinically significant pain relief.
Bruce A. Levy
The mean pre-injection NRS score was 7, the 24-hour score was 1 and the 14-day score was 4. In all, 13 patients reported a change of greater than 2 points on the NRS pain scale at 14 days, while 63% of patients said they had less than 2 points on the NRS pain scale at 14 days.
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“Our data showed absolutely no difference in pain relief between the different steroid preparations,” Levy said.
Reference:
Levy B. Paper #SS-29. Presented at: Arthroscopy Association of North America Annual Meeting; April 25-27, 2013; San Antonio.
Disclosures: Levy receives royalties from VOT Solutions and Arthrex and is on the speaker’s bureau for the Canadian Orthopaedic Association.