Abstract
Background and Objectives: Osteoarthritis, the most common joint disease of humans, is a non-inflammatory disease. However, an inflammatory component may be present in some patients at some phases of the disease. In this study, we aimed to compare the effect of oral prednisolone with intra-articular corticosteroid injection in treatment of inflammatory osteoarthritis of knee.
Materials and Methods: In randomized control study, we evaluated 33 patients with inflammatory osteoarthritis of knee. In 18 patients, triamcinolone (40mg) was injected intra-articularly and in 15 patients oral prednisolone (25mg per day) was administered for 10 days. Clinical response was assessed with severity of knee pain, duration of morning stiffness (min), joint effusion and joint warmth at 0, 10, 30, 60 days of treatment.
Results: Pain reduction in intra-articular injected group was significantly more than that in oral preduislone group in days 10 (P<0.0001), but the difference between two groups in days 30 and 60 was not significant. There was significant reduction in duration of morning stiffness (P<0.0001), joint effusion (P< 0.008) and joint warmth (P< 0.05) in both groups and no significant difference was seen between them in days 10, 30, and 60.
Conclusion: Therefore, although intra-articular steroid rapidly reduced knee pain, in general oral prednisolone is as effective as intra-articular triamcinolone in improvement of inflammatory signs of knee osteoarthritis at 2 months.