Summary
Intra articular Injection of Growth hormone shows promising result for cartilage regeneration
Abstract
Purpose
Osteoarthritis (OA), an increasingly common degenerative disease, has no medication proven to stop or reverse its degenerative process. Growth hormone (GH) can stimulate cartilage cell proliferation. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of intra-articular injection of growth hormone for osteoarthritis compared with hyaluronic acid (HA) and placebo.
Methods
and Materials
This was an experimental study with post-test only controls group design. A total of 21 male, mature New Zealand rabbits received intra-articular type II-collagenase injection for OA induction. Two weeks after injections the rabbits were randomized into three groups. The GH group received intra-articular growth hormone injection, HA group received hyaluronic acid injection and placebo group received saline injection, once weekly for three consecutive weeks. Evaluation was performed 8 weeks after treatment, clinically using lameness period, macroscopically using Yoshimi score and microscopically using Mankin score.
Results
The shortest period of lameness was found in the GH group (15.9 ± 2.12), compared to HA group (19.4 ± 1.72) and placebo (25.0 ± 2.94). There was a statistically significant difference for macroscopic scoring between groups (p=0.001), in favor of GH group. There is also significant difference between the microscopic score between groups (p=0.001), also in favor of GH group.
Conclusion
Intra-articular injection of GH showed better clinical, macroscopic and microscopic results as compared to HA and placebo in New Zealand rabbits OA model. Further research needs to be done to evaluate the efficacy and safety of intra-articular growth hormone injection for OA cases.