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Bridget M. Kuehn

JAMA. 2007;298(20):2361.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 139 words of the full text and any section headings.

Many common therapies for osteoarthritis of the knee may not benefit patients, according to a review by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (http://www.ahrq.gov/downloads/pub/evidence/pdf/oaknee/oaknee.pdf). The review included data from 53 randomized controlled trials of glucosamine, chondroitin, and hyaluronan and 23 trials of arthroscopy.

Review finds little benefit from common treatments for osteoarthritis of the knee.

The review team found that glucosamine and chondroitin, widely used over-the-counter supplements, appear to be no more effective than placebo and found no convincing evidence that patients benefited from arthroscopic surgery to clean the knee joint. They also noted that while injections with hyaluronan preparations to lubricate the knee led to improved scores of pain and function on patient questionnaires, study quality varied, making it difficult to determine if these improved scores are correlated with better clinical outcomes.