Intra-articular Injections for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Single Blinded Prospective Randomized Trial

December 14, 2017 updated by: Mukesh Ahuja, Rush University Medical Center

Corticosteriods vs. Saline vs. Air Placebo Intra-articular Injections for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Single Blinded Prospective Randomized Trial

To investigate the clinical benefit of intra-articular injections of saline in patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee and compare the clinical response of saline to the current standard treatment with corticosteroids and an air injection placebo.

Study Overview

Status

Withdrawn

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

As non-surgical treatments of OA are essential, multiple trials have been done to compare standard of care IA injection therapies to more novel injection treatments, with many of these trials using saline as the control arm. The purpose of using a control arm is to attempt to eliminate placebo effect and help distinguish the true effectiveness of a therapy. There has been controversy over the clinical effect of saline in treating OA with some arguing that saline may have some clinical benefit. If this is true, it could allow for the true effect of standard of care therapies to appear diminished when compared to saline as a placebo. A recent meta analysis looked at the use of saline as a placebo in 38 randomized control trials to determine if intra-articular saline injections for knee OA had a clinical effect. The study found that IA injections of saline significantly improved short-term knee pain in 32 of the studies which involved 1705 patients, p <0.001, and long-term pain was significantly decreased in 19 of the studies involving 1445 patients, p <0.001. It is essential to empirically determine if saline has a clinical effect due to the role it plays as a placebo in many clinical studies of the management of OA with intra-articular injections.

Objective: To investigate the clinical benefit of intra-articular injections of saline in patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee and compare the clinical response of saline to the current standard treatment with corticosteroids and an air injection placebo.

Study Design: Prospective, single-blinded, randomized, clinical study. Patients will be randomized into three treatment arms in a 1:1:1 fashion with approximately 50 patients in the saline arm, 50 patients in the corticosteroid arm, and 50 patients in the placebo arm.

Null Hypothesis: Clinical knee outcomes of subjects following one intra-articular knee injection of air will be similar to one intra-articular knee injection of saline or corticosteroid for symptomatic patients diagnosed with knee OA.

Statistical Assumptions: Power Analysis

Investigational Arm: 10 ml Saline (Normal Saline)

Control Arm: 1 ml of 40 mg corticosteroid in 9 ml 1% lidocaine (Depo-medrol, Pfizer, New York, New York), 10 ml air (placebo)

Primary Efficacy Endpoint: The primary efficacy endpoint is the mean change in the WOMAC Index score 12 weeks after first injection with regards to baseline score.

Secondary Efficacy Secondary efficacy endpoints include the change in the full Endpoints: WOMAC Index, KOOS, Lysholm, IKDC, VAS, SF-12 and use of rescue medication (steroid at 12 weeks).

Enrollment: Prospective, randomized, clinical study designed to evaluate 150 subjects. All enrolled subjects will have a pre-procedure visit, one treatment visit, and follow-up visits at week 6 and week 12 if they require a rescue injection and will fill out patient reported outcome measures at 1, 6, 12, and 24 weeks.

Study Type

Interventional

Phase

  • Early Phase 1

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 80 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  1. The patient must be between the ages of 18 and 80
  2. Informed consent has been obtained from the patient
  3. The patient must have diagnosed symptomatic osteoarthritis of the tibio-femoral or patello-femoral compartment of the target knee for at least 1 month
  4. The patient has moderate-to-severe knee pain reflected by an average visual analogue scale (VAS) score of 4 or greater (out of a possible 10) over the previous 7 days.
  5. Radiographic imaging must show grade II-III osteoarthritis on the Kellgren & Lawrence Scale.
  6. Patients may have bilateral osteoarthritis but only patients with unilateral symptoms may be included.

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Knee instability
  2. A score less than 4 (out of a possible 10) on their intake VAS
  3. Major axial deviation (>5º valgus or varus deviation as evidenced on a standard of care x-ray.
  4. Previous surgery at the target knee < 6 months.
  5. Symptomatic osteoarthritis of the contralateral knee or any other joint.
  6. Systemic or intra articular injection to any joint with corticosteroids within 6 months prior to screening
  7. Previous joint injection of any type in the past 6 months
  8. Systemic conditions that could interfere with outcome such as Rheumatoid arthritis, coagulopathy, and anemia.
  9. Allergy to any of the injected substances.
  10. Any patient unable to cease NSAID usage (other than low dose aspirin) due to unrelated condition.
  11. Cognitive impairment or unable to provide informed consent
  12. Recent knee trauma with violation of the intra-articular bone.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Knee injection with corticosteroids
Using clinically accepted methods, subjects will undergo a palpation guided injection of corticosteroids into the knee joint. Subjects will then return for follow-up visit at 12 weeks for a physical exam of the knee. Patients will fill out questionnaires online at 1, 6, 12 and 24 weeks.
Drug: 40 mg Depo-Medrol in 1 ml, 9 ml of 1% lidocaine
Patients will receive an ultrasound guided intra-articular injection of 40 mg Depo-Medrol in 1 ml, 9 ml of 1% lidocaine
Other Names:
  • Corticosteroid
Placebo Comparator: Knee injection with saline
Using clinically accepted methods, subjects will undergo a palpation guided injection of saline into the knee joint. Subjects will then return for follow-up visit at 12 weeks for a physical exam of the knee. Patients will fill out questionnaires online at 1, 6, 12 and 24 weeks.
Drug: Normal Saline 10 ml
Patients will receive an ultrasound guided intra-articular injection of Normal Saline 10 ml
Other Names:
  • Saline
Sham Comparator: Knee injection with air
Using clinically accepted methods, subjects will undergo a palpation guided injection of air into the knee joint. Subjects will then return for follow-up visit at 12 weeks for a physical exam of the knee. Patients will fill out questionnaires online at 1, 6, 12 and 24 weeks.
Drug: Air 10 ml
Patients will receive an ultrasound guided intra-articular injection of Air 10 ml
Other Names:
  • Air

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Mean change in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index score (WOMAC)
Time Frame: 12 weeks after injection
Mean change in the WOMAC Index score from baseline score
12 weeks after injection

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Mean change in Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS)
Time Frame: 12 weeks after injection
Mean change in the KOOS from baseline score
12 weeks after injection
Mean change in International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score
Time Frame: 12 weeks after injection
Mean change in IKDC from baseline score
12 weeks after injection
Mean change in Visual Analogue Scale (VAS)
Time Frame: 12 weeks after injection
Mean change in VAS from baseline score
12 weeks after injection
Mean change in Short Form 12 (SF-12) score
Time Frame: 12 weeks after injection
Mean change in SF-12 from baseline score
12 weeks after injection
Mean change in The Lysholm Knee score
Time Frame: 12 weeks after injection
Mean change in The Lysholm Knee score from baseline score
12 weeks after injection
Mean change in use of rescue medication
Time Frame: 12 weeks after injection
Use of anti-inflammatory, analgesics, and rescue corticosteroid injection. Number of pills taken each day. This will be collected via survey. If the medical examiner feels that the patient is continuing to do poorly and they did not receive the steroid injection intervention, then they will be offered a rescue corticosteroid injection at 12 weeks. The number of patients who do not initially receive a corticosteroid injection and require a rescue corticosteroid injection at 12 weeks will be recorded.
12 weeks after injection

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Rush University Medical Center

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Nikhil N Verma, MD, Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Anticipated)

June 1, 2017

Primary Completion (Anticipated)

January 1, 2018

Study Completion (Anticipated)

January 1, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 14, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 14, 2016

First Posted (Estimate)

December 16, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 18, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 14, 2017

Last Verified

December 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 16090902

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

No

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

Yes

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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