Public interest related to hyaluronic acid injections for knee osteoarthritis on the rise

Written By : Dr Supreeth D R |Medically Reviewed By : Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli Published On 2022-12-22T09:15:59+05:30 | Updated On 22 Dec 2022 1:42 PM IST

Hyaluronic acid injections remain a common nonsurgical alternative for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis despite limited clinical evidence and varying global recommendations regarding its use.

Samuel A. Cohen et al used the Google Trends tool to provide a quantitative analysis of public interest in hyaluronic acid injections for knee osteoarthritis in the United States and Europe.

The authors customized Google Trends parameters to obtain search data from January 2009 to December 2019 in both the United States and Europe. Combinations of "arthritis", "osteoarthritis", "hyaluronic acid", "knee arthritis", "knee osteoarthritis", and "knee injection" were entered into the Google Trends tool, and trend analyses were performed.

Key findings of the study:

• The models generated to describe public interest in hyaluronic acid for knee injections in both the United States and Europe showed increased Google queries as time progressed (P < .001).

• The United States growth model displayed linear growth (r2 = 0.90) while the European growth model displayed exponential growth (r2 = 0.90).

• In both the United States and Europe, public interest in HA for knee osteoarthritis was greatest in the month of October and least in the month of December.

• New York City and Los Angeles showed the most consistent growth in public interest in HA for knee osteoarthritis followed by Chicago, Phoenix, and Houston.

The authors concluded that – "Our findings demonstrate increased online public interest in HA injections for knee osteoarthritis from 2009 to 2019 in both the United States and Europe despite mixed clinical evidence regarding its efficacy and inconsistent recommendations regarding its use from governing bodies in both locations. Our models suggest that public interest in HA for knee osteoarthritis is expected to continue to increase in upcoming years. Inconsistencies in recommendations regarding its effectiveness illustrate the potential benefit of more high-level placebo-controlled studies evaluating its effectiveness in order to prepare orthopedic surgeons to counsel an increasingly curious public. Additionally, measures must be implemented to encourage the adoption of responsible and evidence-based marketing such that direct-to-consumer marketing and science align to improve the quality and value of effective treatments in health care, thereby reducing the utilization of expensive and ineffective treatments. Further discussions and awareness of financial conflicts of interest and how these impact recommendations would be valuable for both the general public and medical professionals."

MBBS, Dip. Ortho, DNB ortho, MNAMS

Dr Supreeth D R (MBBS, Dip. Ortho, DNB ortho, MNAMS) is a practicing orthopedician with interest in medical research and publishing articles. He completed MBBS from mysore medical college, dip ortho from Trivandrum medical college and sec. DNB from Manipal Hospital, Bengaluru. He has expirence of 7years in the field of orthopedics. He has presented scientific papers & posters in various state, national and international conferences. His interest in writing articles lead the way to join medical dialogues. He can be contacted at editorial@medicaldialogues.in.

Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli

Dr Kamal Kant Kohli-MBBS, DTCD- a chest specialist with more than 30 years of practice and a flair for writing clinical articles, Dr Kamal Kant Kohli joined Medical Dialogues as a Chief Editor of Medical News. Besides writing articles, as an editor, he proofreads and verifies all the medical content published on Medical Dialogues including those coming from journals, studies,medical conferences,guidelines etc. Email: drkohli@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751