Question of corticosteroids vs hyaluronic acid for knee osteoarthritis ‘hard to answer’

Key takeaways:

A corticosteroid injection was associated with more knee OA disease progression vs. hyaluronic acid.

Retrospective findings require further validation.

Patients who received a corticosteroid injection for knee osteoarthritis demonstrated more disease progression than those who received hyaluronic acid, according to findings published in Radiology.

The researchers used epidemiologic data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), a multicenter, longitudinal, prospective study that stretched from February 2004 to January 2015, to assess the association between corticosteroid or hyaluronic acid infection and knee OA progression.

“We have known for quite a while that corticosteroid injections , especially more than one and more than once a year, have been associated wit