Using Viscosupplementation to Treat Knee Osteoarthritis

This article provides physicians specializing in nonsurgical sports medicine with an overview of viscosupplementation as a treatment for osteoarthritis (OA) pain. Osteoarthritis is a painful, disabling condition that is becoming more prevalent in patients and is generally treated using conservative nonpharmacologic measures. If conservative measures are unsuccessful at alleviating pain, current recommendations include prescribing acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to patients. However, long-term use of these agents increases the risk for liver, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and/or renal complications in patients. Viscosupplementation is the term used for intra-articular injection of hyaluronic acid/hylans. Intra-articular injections of these agents have good safety profiles and have shown efficacy for treating knee OA pain. Viscosupplementation injections relieve pain for <= 26 weeks, which is longer than the short-term pain relief derived from nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and corticosteroid injections. Additionally, viscosupplementation administered to patients in earlier stages of OA may be more beneficial than when given later in the treatment of OA. As part of a multimodal algorithm, viscosupplementation combined with conventional therapy or other pharmacologic agents has been shown to be more effective at managing OA than conventional care alone. This article reviews the evidence for using viscosupplementation as part of a comprehensive program for managing OA in patients.