Intra-Articular Corticosteroids in Addition to Exercise for Reducing Pain Sensitivity in Knee Osteoarthritis: Exploratory Outcome from a Randomized Controlled Trial Soriano-Maldonado, Alberto Klokker, Louise Bartholdy, Cecilie Bandak, Elisabeth Ellegaard, Karen Bliddal, Henning Henriksen, Marius Objective To assess the effects of one intra-articular corticosteroid injection two weeks prior to an exercise-based intervention program for reducing pain sensitivity in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Design Randomized, masked, parallel, placebo-controlled trial involving 100 participants with clinical and radiographic knee OA that were randomized to one intra-articular injection on the knee with either 1 ml of 40 mg/ml methylprednisolone (corticosteroid) dissolved in 4 ml lidocaine (10 mg/ml) or 1 ml isotonic saline (placebo) mixed with 4 ml lidocaine (10 mg/ml). Two weeks after the injections all participants undertook a 12-week supervised exercise program. Main outcomes were changes from baseline in pressure-pain sensitivity (pressurepain threshold [PPT] and temporal summation [TS]) assessed using cuff pressure algometry on the calf. These were exploratory outcomes from a randomized controlled trial. Results A total of 100 patients were randomized to receive either corticosteroid (n = 50) or placebo (n = 50); 45 and 44, respectively, completed the trial. Four participants had missing values for PPT and one for TS at baseline; thus modified intention-to-treat populations were analyzed. The mean group difference in changes from baseline at week 14 was 0.6 kPa (95% CI: -1.7 to 2.8; P = 0.626) for PPT and 384 mm×sec (95% CI: -2980 to 3750; P = 0.821) for TS. Conclusions These results suggest that adding intra-articular corticosteroid injection 2 weeks prior to an exercise program does not provide additional benefits compared to placebo in reducing pain sensitivity in patients with knee OA. 2024-10-07T08:36:21Z 2024-10-07T08:36:21Z 2016-02-12 journal article https://hdl.handle.net/10481/95599 10.1371/journal.pone.0149168 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional Soriano-Maldonado A, Klokker L, Bartholdy C, Bandak E, Ellegaard K, Bliddal H, et al. (2016) Intra-Articular Corticosteroids in Addition to Exercise for Reducing Pain Sensitivity in Knee Osteoarthritis: Exploratory Outcome from a Randomized Controlled Trial. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0149168. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149168