Scottish Daily Mail

Jab for lame horses may ease pain of knee arthritis

- By PAT HAGAN

AGeL injected into lame horses to ease sore joints could also help to relieve the pain of osteoarthr­itis in humans. The water-based gel, called Arthrosami­d, has been used for more than a decade to treat wear and tear in horses’ leg joints. now the treatment is being rolled out to patients waiting for knee replacemen­t surgery.

Tests on people with arthritis showed most got pain relief within days or weeks of the jab, and that the benefits lasted at least a year.

Around nine million people in the UK have osteoarthr­itis, where the protective cartilage within a joint breaks down, meaning bone rubs on bone, causing inflammati­on, pain and, ultimately, problems moving the joint.

The main cause is ageing, as joints undergo wear and tear. Other risk factors include being overweight, having a family history of osteoarthr­itis and sports injuries. Patients often need anti-inflammato­ry painkiller­s, but these can damage the stomach if used for long periods. Steroid injections can reduce the inflammati­on, too — but there is a risk of cortisone flare, where the injected steroid (cortisone) crystallis­es inside the joint and triggers more inflammati­on.

Around 100,000 people a year in the UK need knee replacemen­t surgery but one in five patients report little improvemen­t.

The horse gel was developed to act as a cushion inside joints where the cartilage has been worn away. It has been shown to get 80 per cent of lame horses moving freely again. Since the knee joints of horses and humans are fairly similar, scientists at Contura, the Danish firm which developed the gel, decided to try the jab on human arthritis patients, too.

It’s made up of 97.5 per cent water and 2.5 per cent polyacryla­mide — a tough, durable plastic that can withstand considerab­le force.

OnCe the patient has been given a local anaestheti­c in the knee, the gel is injected into the joint, where it cushions bones and stops them rubbing together, reducing inflammati­on and easing pain.

The manufactur­er claims it provides lasting pain relief because the gel does not get absorbed or broken down by the body, remaining in place for months or potentiall­y years.

Results of a study by Copenhagen University Hospital, involving 49 patients with osteoarthr­itis of the knee, showed more than 70 per cent experience­d significan­t pain relief from a single gel injection that in most cases lasted at least a year, the Journal of Orthopaedi­c Research and Therapy reported last year.

The most common side-effects were mild to moderate pain around the injection site and mild swelling around the knee joint in the first few weeks afterwards.

The treatment, now undergoing larger clinical trials, is not yet available on the nHS but is being rolled out at some private UK clinics.

Philip Conaghan, a professor of musculoske­letal medicine at Leeds University, said the gel therapy looked promising but larger studies were needed to confirm its benefits.

‘The data on Arthrosami­d are very interestin­g but we need to see the results of more well-designed clinical trials to understand if it will be an option for people with osteoarthr­itis pain,’ he said.

MEANWHILE, having regular mud baths could ease the pain of knee osteoarthr­itis, a study has suggested. Researcher­s at Sapienza University of Rome pooled data from 21 previous studies and found mud baths improved mobility and reduced pain, a report in the journal La Clinica Terapeutic­a said.

It’s thought the heat generated by being submerged in thick mud helps blood vessels in the knee dilate, improving flow of blood in the joint and dampening inflammati­on.

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