Do Corticosteroid Injections During Total Knee Replacement Improve Early Clinical Results?

Summary

Prior to surgery, a pharmacist will randomly assign participating patients to one of two groups. One group will get an injection in the knee during surgery that contains medications to limit pain and an antibiotic. A second group will get an injection in the knee during surgery that contains the same pain medications and antibiotic along with a corticosteroid to control inflammation. Corticosteroids are anti-inflammatory medications, not to be confused with muscle-building anabolic steroids you may have heard about in the news. Each patient will have an equal chance of being in either of the two groups. This study will test the safety and efficacy of methylprednisolone acetate in the treatment of pain and inflammation following total knee replacement.

Timeline

Start

2006-03

Primary completion

2008-02

Completion

2008-02

Publications

• Background Lombardi AV Jr, Berend KR, Mallory TH, Dodds KL, Adams JB. Soft tissue and intra-articular injection of bupivacaine, epinephrine, and morphine has a beneficial effect after total knee arthroplasty. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2004 Nov;(428):125-30. doi: 10.1097/01.blo.0000147701.24029.cc.
• Background Parvataneni HK, Ranawat AS, Ranawat CS. The use of local periarticular injections in the management of postoperative pain after total hip and knee replacement: a multimodal approach. Instr Course Lect. 2007;56:125-31.
• Christensen CP, Jacobs CA, Jennings HR. Effect of periarticular corticosteroid injections during total knee arthroplasty. A double-blind randomized trial. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2009 Nov;91(11):2550-5. doi: 10.2106/JBJS.H.01501.

Drugs

Indications