Web edition: January 28, 2011
Print edition: February 12, 2011; Vol.179 #4 (p. 4)
RELIEVE ARTHRITIC JOINTS — Chronically inflamed arthritic joints can be relieved, but not cured, by injecting cortisone-related steroids, or hormone drugs, directly into the joint. Repeated injections, up to 142 times in one case, had no apparently harmful effect, three doctors report in the Bulletin of Rheumatic Diseases, Jan., 1961. Some 4,000 patients at the University of Pennsylvania Arthritis Clinic, Philadelphia, received more than 100,000 injections during a ten-year period.... Reduction in swelling and relief of pain was found in 90%. The physicians state that relief varies and is often temporary. Because the treatment can be repeated in long-term cases of the most serious types of arthritis ... however, it is especially valuable.
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