Good Practice Recommendations from the EUROVISCO regarding the first injection of hyaluronic acid in patients with knee osteoarthritis – Conrozier et al. 2022
The European Viscosupplementation Consensus Group (EUROVISCO) is an expert panel created in 2014 working on specific subjects related to viscosupplementation and osteoarthritis management. Its objective is to draw up and publish suggestions and recommendations to help practitioners in osteoarthritis management and the better use of viscosupplementation in their daily practice.
The EUROVISCO experts recently published a new paper focusing on the identification of patients with knee osteoarthritis who could benefit from a first hyaluronic acid treatment. Using the Delphi method, the authors agreed on a decision algorithm aiming at supporting healthcare professionals in their daily clinical practice. The authors propose that viscosupplementation should be offered to patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis Kellgren-Lawrence grade 2 or 3 for more than 3 months, outside of flares.
Interestingly, the experts also agreed that hyaluronic acid can be envisaged as first-line pharmacological treatment in patients having a contraindication to the use of NSAIDs. Viscosupplementation is also a safe alternative for patients with severe comorbidities to reduce treatments as NSAIDs or corticosteroids - with a significant side-effects profile.
For the full paper click here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36443990/