Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Physician Assistant Studies

Committee Chair

Trey Boyd

Abstract

Introduction: Osteoarthritis is a very common degenerative disease seen in older adults that is typically due to repetitive movements of the joints over time. Without treatment, osteoarthritis can progress and cause individuals to have decreased function and quality of life. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness of hyaluronic acid injections compared to corticosteroid injections in treating osteoarthritis of the knee.

Methods: PubMed was searched with a specific search strategy using key terms “knee osteoarthritis”, “hyaluronic acid”, and “corticosteroids”. Operators and filters were applied to narrow 572 results down to 40. 15 articles were reviewed and 4 relevant, quality articles were chosen for final clinical review.

Results: Three of the studies directly compared hyaluronic acid injections to corticosteroid injections in osteoarthritis of the knee. One study compared corticosteroid injections, hyaluronic acid injections, and platelet rich plasma injections in osteoarthritis of the knee.

Discussion: The studies in this review showed that hyaluronic acid injections were more effective in pain reduction for osteoarthritis of the knee. The studies also showed that both corticosteroid injections and hyaluronic acid injections were equally as safe for use in osteoarthritis of the knee with no difference statistically in adverse effects.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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