A prospective, randomized, open-label research was carried out to determine the usefulness of combination of Duloxetine and injections of hyaluronic acid (HA) and corticosteroid (CS) in osteoarthritis of the knee.

A total of 150 volunteers were randomly assigned to either receive Duloxetine combined with intraarticular injections of CS+HA (n = 75) or CS+HA intraarticular injections alone (n = 75). The enrolled subjects were followed for twenty-four weeks. The main focus was on the alteration in the average mean pain scores recorded every week over 24 hours.

On the other hand, the secondary assessments encompassed the percentage of subjects experiencing pain reduction of at least 30% or 50%, along with evaluations from the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) scores, monitoring of adverse events, and Patient Global Impression Improvement (PGI-I) ratings.

Those in the Duloxetine combination group demonstrated remarkably greater improvements in weekly pain scores, BPI pain severity ratings (P < 0.001), and WOMAC scores (P < 0.001). A notably higher proportion of subjects in the combination group reported a PGI-I score of <= 2 (P = 0.021) and a pain alleviation of >= 50% (P = 0.029) at the 24-week mark. However, there were no inter-group distinctions witnessed in the percentage of subjects with a <= 30% pain alleviation, the HADS scores, or the frequency of adverse events.

Co-treatment with Duloxetine and intraarticular (HA+CS) injections elicited remarkable pain relief and improved knee function when compared to intraarticular injections alone.