Intra-articular hyaluronic acid injection versus oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: a multi-center, randomized, open-label, non-inferiority trial

Intra-articular hyaluronic acid injection versus oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis:a multi-center, randomized, open-label, non-inferiority trial

Article specification

This clinical trial was published in 2014 in journal of Arthritis Research & Therapy (IF 2014:4.12) Japanese orthopedists. This is a comparison study of the efficacy and safety between intra articular hyaluronic acid and NSAIDs for patients with knee OA.  In this study 200 patients divided in 2 groups one used NSAIDs three times a day for 5 weeks and the other one has IA-HA once a week for five weeks. All patients were questioned regarding any adverse events during treatment. Full analysis set (FAS) was used for analysis.

Results

The results of the study demonstrated that both the IA-HA oral NSAID over five weeks significantly improved both the clinical symptoms evaluated by the patient-oriented outcome measure and the pain severity evaluated by a VAS. No significant differences in the symptom-modifying effects were observed during the study. In addition, the safety of the early phase of IA-HA treatment was superior to that of the NSAID in the patients with knee OA.