Systemic treatment with an intramuscular glucocorticoid injection is effective, compared with placebo, in reducing pain in people with hip osteoarthritis for up to 12 weeks, a double-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized trial suggests.
However, the study found benefit with intramuscular (IM) glucocorticoid injection at 2 weeks only when patients were at rest, and did not find any significant benefit with the injection in reducing pain while walking or in reducing Western Ontario and McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain subscale scores. The report was published in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
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The multicenter, double-blinded, superiority trial randomized 106 patients with painful hip OA who were not responding to oral analgesics to either 40 mg triamcinolone acetate (n = 52) or placebo injection (n = 54) into the gluteus muscle. Overall, 73 patients (68%) were women, and the average age of the cohort was 64 years. Hip OA symptoms had occurred for at least 1 year in 70% of the patients.