Triamcinolone extended-release intraarticular injection: Top choice for knee OA pain

With multiple non-operative treatments available for knee osteoarthritis (OA), a recent study published in ‘The Journal of Arthroplasty’ set out to find which options offer the best relief and functional improvement.

A total of 480 patients with unilateral knee OA from the Innovations in Genicular Outcomes Research Registry, who had previously received non-operative therapies, got one of the six treatments: 

• Cryoanalgesia with deep genicular nerve block (Cryo-Deep/Both)
• Cryoanalgesia superficial peroneal nerve block (Cryo-Superficial)
• Intra-articular hyaluronic acid (IA-hyaluronan) injections
• Intra-articular nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug injections (IA-NSAIDs)
• Intra-articular corticosteroids (IA-corticosteroid) injections 
• Intra-articular injections of triamcinolone as extended-release formulation (IA-TA-ER) injections

Outcomes for pain severity and physical function were tracked at various intervals spanning over four months. IA-TA-ER injections led to the lowest pain levels, greatest pain decrease, best functional scores, and highest rate of achieving minimally clinically important difference (MCID) score. Cryo-Deep/Both and IA-corticosteroid injections also showed higher rates of achieving MCID than IA-hyaluronan, IA-NSAIDs and Cryo-Superficial.