Intraarticular hip corticosteroid injections offer no meaningful benefit in delaying time to total hip arthroplasty in patients with hip osteoarthritis

Introduction: Symptomatic hip osteoarthritis (OA) causes significant morbidity and functional limitations. While corticosteroid injections (CSI) are commonly offered and administered for OA pain relief, it is unknown if they offer any clinically meaningful long-term benefit or reduce the overall need for surgical intervention.

Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective cohort study was performed on primary hip osteoarthritis patients from a single academic tertiary-care center arthroplasty clinic from 2014 to 2019. Patients were divided into three groups. CSI + THA: hip CSI patients who underwent subsequent ipsilateral THA. CSI-noTHA: hip CSI who have not had ipsilateral THA to date. THA-noCSI: a control group of consecutive hip OA patients who underwent primary THA without prior CSI. Demographic variables, injection relief duration, and radiographic arthritis severity were recorded. Time from clinic presentation to injection and/or THA were compared.

Results: 357 patients met inclusion criteria and underwent guided, arthroplasty provider-ordered CSI. Mean duration of relief was 6.7 weeks (SD 8.7). 244 injection patients (67.2%) subsequently underwent THA (CSI + THA). 150 of 390 patients have not undergone THA at mean of 25.5 months follow-up. Mean time from clinic presentation to THA was 8.6 months longer after CSI (16.3, SD 17.8) months in CSI patients compared to 7.7 (SD 10.6) months for patients without CSI (p < 0.001). Of 117 patients in the CSI-noTHA group at mean 25 months follow-up, only 43 (12% of all injection patients) had not had THA because they found injections effective. The remaining 74 (63%) of CSI-noTHA patients have been deemed medically unfit for surgery or are currently scheduled for THA.

Discussion/conclusion: The results of this study suggest the utilization of intra-articular CSI as conservative treatment in an arthroplasty clinic does not prolong time to THA for a clinically important duration. The use of CSI should be reserved for diagnostic purposes and/or short-term pain relief in poor surgical candidates.

Level of evidence: III.