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Intra-articular corticosteroid injections seen as efficacious for short-term management of knee OA
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According to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, intra-articular corticosteroid injections effectively managed symptoms of knee osteoarthritis in the short-term.
“[When] we are treating patients with knee [osteoarthritis] OA, there is good evidence that demonstrated that the most important thing to control the symptoms are going to be weight loss and upper muscle strength,” Elizabeth G. Matzkin, MD, study co-author and orthopedic surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Healio Rheumatology. “But, for patients that are having pain and cannot get themselves motivated exercise-wise or are not given to surgical management, steroid injections can certainly potentially buy them 6 months of pain relief and improvement in function.”
Matzkin and colleagues performed a retrospective, multicentered cohort study of 100 patients with radiographic knee OA. Investigators administered one corticosteroid injection into the affected knee. Patients were evaluated prior to the injection and at 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months after the injection.
Results showed improvements at all time points in the visual numeric scale and WOMAC scores, with the exception of the visual numeric scale score at 6 months. Investigators noted that compared with baselines score, patients with Kellgren-Lawrence grade 1 or 2 OA saw clinical improvements in WOMAC scores at all time points.
“We looked at the patients and broke them down by their BMI,” Matzkin said. “So, patients who were obese still had significant relief of pain and improvement in function, but they were always a bit lower than the patients who were non-obese.” – by Monica Jaramillo
Disclosure: Matzkin reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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