Effects of Intramuscular vs Intra-articular Glucocorticoid Injection on Pain Among Adults With Knee Osteoarthritis (Part 3)
This is a continuation of the article we presented last week on the effects of intramuscular vs. intra-articular glucocorticoid injection on pain among adults with knee osteoarthritis.
The design of the study says that KIS was a multicenter, open-labeled, parallel, noninferiority randomized clinical trial with a follow-upperiod of 24 weeks. In fact, a detailed study protocol has already been published regarding the matter.
The study says that there was an approved protocol issued by the medical ethics committee of a certain institution: all included patients provided written informed consent before baseline measures were obtained and participants did not receive financial compensation.
The study also says that the patients were recruited between March 1, 2018, and February 11, 2020, at 80 general practices in the southwest region of a certain country and the final follow-up of the study was done on July 28, 2020.
The criteria for the selection of the patients were: patients’ age should be starting 45 years and older; patients consulted in primary care for knee symptoms during the past 5 years with knee OA diagnosed by a GP; patients had presence of symptomatic knee OA for at least 3 months before enrollment, and moderate to severe knee pain over the past week (numeric rating scale score 3 on a scale of 0-10; 0 indicates no pain).
It was also stated that the treating GP assessed whether there was an indication for a glucocorticoid injection for the eligible patients. The National GP guideline recommends glucocorticoid injection for patients with knee OA who have a flare of knee pain and/or do not respond to other pain medications.
For patients with bilateral knee OA, the most painful knee was chosen as the index knee. (To be continued)