When conventional anti-inflammatories and analgesics are no longer sufficient, it is customary to resort to infiltrations, in this case injections of corticosteroids or hyaluronic acid, to relieve osteoarthritis of the knee.
Due to contested effectiveness, hyaluronic acid injections are no longer reimbursed by health insurance. Unfortunately, corticosteroid injections would not be preferable, because they would make the disease progress instead of slowing it down.
In any case, this is what American researchers say, who presented two studies on this subject at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (Source 1).
Both studies were conducted using cohorts from theOsteoarthritis Initiativean observational study of nearly 5,000 participants with osteoarthritis of the knee, currently in its 14th year of follow-up.
In the first study where 210 participants were included, 70 received intra-articular injections (44 corticosteroid injections, and 26 hyaluronic acid injections) and 140 were part of the control group, without any injection for two years. MRIs were performed at the time of the injection, but also two years before and two years after.
By comparing the images obtained, the scientists found that corticosteroid injections in the knee were significantly associated with an overall progression of osteoarthritis of the knee, particularly in the meniscus…