Intra-articular Injections for Osteoarthritis

The two articles in this month’s press of The Journal of Arthritis, one by Ekinci et al. titled ‘A New Treatment Option in Osteoarthritis: Prolotherapy Injections’ and the other by Senatorov et al. titled ‘Clinical Outcome of Hylan G-F 20 Injections in Shoulder and Hip.

Osteoarthritis: A Retrospective Review’ raise several important points surrounding the topic of intra-articular injections. Firstly that there is a paucity of high quality literature in the field that often leads to inconclusive or misrepresented conclusions on drug efficacy in established treatments. The articles also highlight the heterogeneity in injection procedure, site, concentration, preparation and outcome measurements.

This editorial will, therefore, provide a concise review on some of the current injection therapies and suggest possible improvements to methodological structure to inspire readers strive for high quality data.

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Short Commentary to the Prolotherapy as a Treatment Method of the Arthritis

The authors performed a short review of the method prolotherapy. This treatment method, known also as proliferation therapy, is an injection based /hypertonic dextrose/ treatment used for a various painful and chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions.

In the article the knee osteoarthritis, patellafemoral syndrome and osteoarthritis of carpometacarpal joints is mentioned. The others possible indications are tendinitis, low back pain. The principle of this method is application of the solution into the joint.

Most commonly hyperosmolar dextrose, glycerine, lidocaine phenol and sodium morrhuate.It is an interesting study and in my opinion it is suitable for publication, but there are some questions. What about the indications criteria for this method e.g. in knee osteoarthritis, which degree of arthrosis.

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