Corticosteroid/Ropivacaine Versus Corticosteroid/Saline Injections for Knee Osteoarthritis
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2016-10-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Corticosteroid injections are commonly used for the symptomatic treatment of knee
osteoarthritis. Common practice is to inject the joint with a combination of corticosteroid
and local anesthetic, with the rationale of providing longer duration pain relief with the
corticosteroid and immediate, though short duration relief with the anesthetic. However,
multiple in vitro and animal studies have shown that local anesthetic may be harmful to
chondrocytes. Despite this data, use of intra-articular anesthetic remains widespread. Many
clinicians believe incorporating the anesthetic is important because it can provide immediate
pain relief and facilitate patient confidence in the treatment program. However, there is no
published data to validate this reasoning. Therefore, the anesthetic has unknown clinical
benefit and may have adverse effects on articular cartilage. In light of this, the
investigators question the routine use of anesthetics in joint injections. The purpose of
this study is to compare the effects of knee joint injections using: 1) corticosteroid with
local anesthetic versus 2) corticosteroid with normal saline.