Viscosupplementation for improvement in pain and mobility in knee osteoarthritis : A retrospective cross sectional study.

Objective: To evaluate pain and mobility improvement in knee osteoarthritis patients after hyaluronic acidviscosupplementation.Method: The cross-sectional, retrospective study was conducted at the Department of Orthopaedics, Aga KhanUniversity Hospital, Karachi, and comprised data from January 2019 to December 2022 of patients having kneeosteoarthritis who had received viscosupplementation with hyaluronic acid gel. Western Ontario and McMasterUniversities Osteoarthritis Index score was calculated at baseline and on patient follow-up at 12 months. Data wasanalysed using SPSS 23Results: Of the 180 patients with mean age 61.1+/-11.4 years, 109(60.6%) were females and 71(39.4%) were males.Mean baseline score was 69.6+/-8.3, which went down to 48.2+/-10.6 post-intervention (p<0.05), with significantlygreater improvement in patients with mild to moderate knee osteoarthritis compared to those with advancedosteoarthritis (p<0.05).Conclusion: Viscosupplementation with hyaluronic acid significantly improved outcomes in knee osteoarthritiscases over one year. Benefits were more notable in mild to moderate cases.Key Words: Knee osteoarthritis, Hyaluronic acid gel, WOMAC score, Viscosupplementation, Improvement in pain.