Research suggests that corticosteroid injections for osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee accelerate progression of the disease, leading to a need for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) sooner than if the patient had not had the injection.
However, many patients in studies of corticosteroid therapy have had advanced knee OA, which is a risk factor for disease progression in and of itself. Given that, do these studies really tell the whole story of corticosteroid injections and OA progression?
The answer may be no, according to the findings of new study presented at the ACR Convergence 2020, the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology: Patients with knee OA who had corticosteroid injections did not show faster progression of OA or of needing TKA than patients who had hyaluronic acid injections, which have not been associated with cartilage loss.