Use and Cost of Hyaluronic Acid Knee Injections in the U.S.

Double-blind, placebo-controlled trials show that intraarticular hyaluronic acid injections are largely ineffective in treating patients with knee osteoarthritis (NEJM JW Gen Med Jan 15 2016 and J Bone Joint Surg Am 2015; 97:2047). Researchers analyzed an insurance claims database to determine how often these injections were given during the year before total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in U.S. patients with osteoarthritis who underwent TKA from 2005 to 2012.

Among 244,000 patients in the database, 15% received at least one hyaluronic acid knee injection; among patients who received injections, the mean number of injections was 3.6. The annual rate of injections remained similar throughout the 8-year observation period. The mean payment was US$3…