Intra-articular injection of hyalurans, efficacy for the treatment of knee articular cartilage lesions

Introduction: Knee articular cartilage lesions are common among young athletes and generally young people. They are found mainly during arthroscopy and sometimes after meticulous clinical examination and MRI of knee. The aim of this early report is to present our results from the use of intrarticular injection of hyaluronans for the treatment of knee articular cartilage lesions.

Methods: During the last 2 years 35 patients (17-42 years mean age 31y) with knee chondral lesions were treated with Hylan G-F 20. They had single or mixed problem in the medial joint department 67%, in the lateral department 32% and in the patelofemoral 43%. We identified the lesions mainly after arthroscopy and by clinical evaluation. The patients received one course of three weekly injections. We evaluated them using the Lysholm Scoring system.

Results: We recorded no local or systemic reactions to hylan G-F 20. We followed up all our patients right after the course, and after 1, 3, 6 and 12 months (mean 7,1 months). There was a significant decrease of the painful sympomatology, for the majority of our patients (91%), especially for them who had previously an arthroscopy. But we also observed that this pain free period lasted only for a short time when there was a severe chondral lesion (Outerbridge classification grades III-IV) and the knee problems came back.

Discussion/Conclusions: Our study is going on, and until now is too early to secure conclusions. But, we believe that Hylan G-F 20 is a safe and well-tolerated therapy providing a short-term decrease of the pain symptoms while improving joint function. The available evidence is not sufficient to reach firm conclusions on the long-term effect.

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