Is Local Viscosupplementation Injection Clinically Superior to Other Therapies in the Treatment of Osteoarthritis of the Knee: A Systematic Review of Overlapping Meta-analyses

An update on the up and coming therapies to treat osteoarthritis, a multifaceted disease

“…IA drug administration for OA treatment is innately attractive because it can diminish some of the severe side effects associated with systemic drug delivery, particularly in elderly patients (96)(97)(98)(99)(100)(101). In addition, many patients affected by OA only have one or few symptomatic OA joints, such as knee, hip or ankle.…”

Editorial: Getting Evidence Into Practice - or Not: The Case of Viscosupplementation

“…No compelling rationale has emerged during that time to justify the use of these products, let alone the increased use of them. Thoughtful critiques and one major new analysis have indeed been published since then [1,2,13], but these cannot escape the reality of the primary-source data upon which the Academy's guideline (as well as OARSI's) rest: If viscosupplementation offers any benefit to patients, it is small and of questionable clinical importance. In addition, Jacobs et al [8] have identified factual and analytical errors in both of those Level V critiques [1,13] of the Academy's guideline.…”

Outpatient management of knee osteoarthritis

“…Published meta-analyses have generally shown positive results, but controversy regarding its efficacy remains. (22)(23)(24)(25) There are also additional concerns about cost-effectiveness, and studies evaluating its efficacy reflect a high percentage of industry authorship. (26) The AAOS does not recommend the use of hyaluronic acid injections in knee OA treatment, while the ACR guidelines make no recommendations.…”