What question did this study set out to answer?

To determine the clinical significance of injectable hyaluronic acid for knee osteoarthritis across pain, function, and stiffness, and to assess how trial characteristics influence observed treatment effects.

December 1, 2015Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery

Viscosupplementation for Osteoarthritis of the Knee

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

To determine the clinical significance of injectable hyaluronic acid for knee osteoarthritis across pain, function, and stiffness, and to assess how trial characteristics influence observed treatment effects.
Searched PubMed, EMBASE, PEDro, and CENTRAL for randomized controlled trials comparing hyaluronic acid with control treatments with a minimum of 30 patients per subgroup.
Identified 19 trials reporting pain (VAS or WOMAC), WOMAC function, or WOMAC stiffness evaluated against established minimal important differences (MIDs).
Conducted a systematic review and meta-regression analyses to measure the impact of trial-level factors, such as blinding quality, cross-linking, and follow-up duration, on treatment effect sizes.
Double-blinded, sham-controlled trials yielded significantly smaller treatment effects than unblinded or inadequately blinded trials (p < 0.05), with overall effects falling below half of the MID for pain, function, and stiffness.
Evaluations of cross-linked hyaluronic acid in double-blinded trials similarly demonstrated treatment effect sizes less than half the MIDs for pain and stiffness.
Follow-up duration demonstrated a statistically significant association with treatment effect in initial models, but this effect disappeared entirely once open-label trials were excluded.

Discussion

No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.

Implication

Meta-analysis reveals minimal clinical benefits of hyaluronic acid in knee osteoarthritis, suggesting earlier positive findings were driven by inadequate blinding.

Cite This Study

Jevsevar et al. (2015) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a85bf766f8d490ba41e7c98 https://doi.org/10.2106/jbjs.n.00743

View Full Paper

Ask AI

Bookmark

Implication

Meta-analysis reveals minimal clinical benefits of hyaluronic acid in knee osteoarthritis, suggesting earlier positive findings were driven by inadequate blinding.

Viscosupplementation for Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Key Points

Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

Viscosupplementation for Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Key Points

Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

Also Consider

Also Consider