Intra‐articular corticosteroids for the treatment of osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta‐analysis on the comparison of different molecules and doses

Abstract

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study was to quantify and compare the clinical relevance of the different intra‐articular corticosteroids (CS) effects in vivo for osteoarthritis (OA) treatment. Methods The search was conducted on PubMed, Cochrane, and Web of Science in October 2023. The PRISMA guidelines were used. Inclusion criteria: animal or human randomized controlled trials (RCTs), English language and no time limitation, on the comparison of different intra‐articular CS for OA treatment. The articles' quality was assessed using the Cochrane RoB2 and GRADE guidelines for human RCTs, and SYRCLE's tool for animal RCTs. Results Eighteen RCTs were selected (16 human and 2 animal studies), including 1577 patients (1837 joints) and 31 animals (51 joints). The CS used were triamcinolone (14 human and 2 animal studies), methylprednisolone (7 human and 1 animal study), betamethasone (3 human studies) and dexamethasone (1 human study). All studies addressed knee OA except for three human and one animal study. A meta‐analysis was performed on the comparison of methylprednisolone and triamcinolone in humans with knee OA analysing VAS pain at very short‐ (≤2 weeks), short‐ (>2 and ≤4 weeks), mid‐ (>4 and ≤8 weeks), long‐ (>8 and ≤ 12 weeks), and very long‐term (>12 and ≤24 weeks). Triamcinolone showed better post‐injection values compared to methylprednisolone at very short‐term (p = 0.028). No difference in terms of VAS improvement was observed at any follow‐up. Conclusions The available preclinical and clinical literature provides limited evidence on the comparison of different CS, hindering the possibility of determining the best CS approach in terms of molecule and dose for the intra‐articular injection of OA joints. Level of Evidence Level I.

Keywords

• corticosteroids
• intra‐articular injections
• knee
• osteoarthritis
• RCTs