Hyaluronic Acid Injections Are Associated with Delay of Total Knee Replacement Surgery in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis: Evidence from a Large U.S. Health Claims Database.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The growing prevalence of osteoarthritis (OA) and the medical costs associated with total knee replacement (TKR) surgery for end-stage OA motivate a search for agents that can delay OA progression. We test a hypothesis that hyaluronic acid (HA) injection is associated with delay of TKR in a dose-dependent manner.

Methods and findings

We retrospectively evaluated records in an administrative claims database of ~79 million patients, to identify all patients with knee OA who received TKR during a 6-year period. Only patients with continuous plan enrollment from diagnosis until TKR were included, so that complete medical records were available. OA diagnosis was the index event and we evaluated time-to-TKR as a function of the number of HA injections. The database incl

SUBMITTER: Altman R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4687851 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature