Tackling Unmet Medical Need: How Slow-Release Intra-articular Corticosteroids Could Play a Role in Improving Quality of Life and Reducing Risk in Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the fastest growing cause of disability worldwide, but, with few proven therapeutic options, it is an underserved condition. With increasingly ageing populations contributing to a rising global prevalence, this unmet need only threatens to worsen in the coming years. To date, researchers have tried and failed in their bids to develop new ways to treat the pain and loss of function that significantly impacts health-related quality of life (HrQoL) and leaves people vulnerable to accumulating disability and at risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), comorbidities, and mortality. Now, a novel way to deliver one of the only proven interventions for pain and inflammation, corticosteroid injections, is on the horizon for knee OA. Slow-release formulations could possibly prolong the clinical benefit of a single injection from 6 weeks to 6 months, providing a new option to improve HrQoL for people with OA, and maybe even breaking the cycle of inflammation that likely contributes to progression. In this key opinion leader article, Philip Conaghan and Lee Simon discuss OA’s significant Quality of life (QoL) and long-term health impact. They also outline the current, inadequate treatment landscape, and explain how slow-release corticosteroids could potentially help tackle a huge unmet medical need.