Efficacy and safety of viscosupplementation with hylan G-F 20 in patients with chronic idiopathic osteoarthritis

Viscosupplementation with hylan G-F 20: a 26-week controlled trial of efficacy and safety in the osteoarthritic knee.

Article specifications

This clinical trial was published in 1998 in Journal of Clin Ther. (IF 2016: 7.266) by German specialists. The efficacy and safety of viscosupplementation with hylan G-F 20 were evaluated in a multicenter, double-masked clinical study in patients with chronic idiopathic osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee of 1 to 30 years' duration. Three intra-articular injections of 2 mL hylan G-F 20 were administered 1 week apart to 57 knees. The control group (60 knees) received 2 mL of physiologic buffered saline solution at the same intervals.

 

Results

Treatment with saline was less effective, with fewer than 13% of patients free or nearly free of weight-bearing pain. Use of rescue therapy was significantly greater in the saline group than in the hylan G-F 20 group. No adverse events were observed in the injected joint after hylan G-F 20 treatment. These results demonstrate that hylan G-F 20 is effective and well tolerated in the management of chronic idiopathic OA.