Efficacy of Viscosupplementation in Hip Osteoarthritis by Using Clinical Gait Analysis

Osteoarthritis is the most common cause of disability in elderly people. Hip osteoarthritis is the second most frequent form affecting joints and its socioeconomic impact on society related disability is expected to increase. Hip osteoarthritis is characterized by pain and impaired movement. Intra-articular joint infiltration of hyaluronic acid (HA) as a line of treatment to restore the biologic properties of synovial fluid in the joint. To assess hip OA by ultrasonography and hip performance using qualitative gait analysis pre and post intraarticular hip injection of (HA).
40 patients with unilateral painful OA hip (Kellgren-Lawrence II-III) were treated from October 2019 to October 2021 with HA guided by US. Patients were evaluated before injection, after 1 and 3 months through the visual analog scale (VAS) scale, Lequesne Index and the spatiotemporal parameters of gait analysis. Pain as measured with visual analog scale (VAS) significantly decreased after the intraarticular injections 1 and 3 months (P<0.0001). A significant improvement was noted regarding disability (P<0.0001), as measured by Lequesne Index. As regards gait analysis, patients walked with higher cadence and stride length compared to baseline. A significant increase in gait speed was noted after 1 and 3 months follow up, no significant importance noted regarding step width. Patients display improvement 3 months after injection of (HA), accompanied by changes in walking pattern, as measured by spatiotemporal parameters of gait analysis. The improvement observed may be the consequence of the therapeutic effect of intra-articular injections of (HA).