Comparison of Efficacy between Dextrose Neurofascial Prolotherapy and Intra-articular Corticosteroid Injection in Patients with Moderate to Severe Knee Osteoarthritis: A Double-Blind Randomized Clinical Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Considering the large variety of medications prescribed in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis (OA) and uncertainty about their efficacy, the present study was conducted to compare the efficacy of dextrose neurofascial prolotherapy and intra-articular corticosteroid injection in patients with moderate to severe knee OA. Methods: Qualified patients were randomly allocated to one of the two groups. The first group received one intra-articular injection of corticosteroid 40 mg plus 1cc lidocaine 1%. The second group received one intra-articular injection of 5 cc dextrose 20% through the lateral mid-patellar approach and four periarticular subcutaneous injections of dextrose 16% (4 cc dextrose 20% plus 1 cc lidocaine 1%) in 4 areas around the knee. Results: The findings showed a significant improvement in all measured outcomes in steroid groups, but not in the function component and overall Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC) score of the prolotherapy group. No significant differences were observed between the groups in terms of the visual analog scale (VAS) and the WOMAC components of stiffness and function one month after treatment. In terms of the overall WOMAC score and pain component of WOMAC, the corticosteroid group showed significantly better results after one month (P = 0.046 and P = 0.007, respectively). Conclusion: The results showed that both dextrose prolotherapy and corticosteroid intra-articular injection reduced pain and stiffness in patients with moderate to severe knee OA. In the short term, corticosteroid injection is superior to dextrose prolotherapy. To more precisely compare the effectiveness of these treatments in the long term, we recommend further studies with longer follow-up periods and larger sample sizes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".