Effects of Combined Topical and Systemic Steroid Administrations on Better Early Postoperative Pain Management in Total Knee Arthroplasty

With the aging of population, osteoarthritis of knees and hips has become major orthopaedic problems in Hong Kong. Osteoarthritis of knees and hips is associated with significant pain problems and functional disability. Total joint replacement is the ultimate surgical procedure to deal with such problems. However total joint replacement is associated with significant tissue damage and post-operative pain problems, which would affect post-operative recovery and rehabilitation. The primary aims of total knee replacement are improvement in functional activities and reducing pain due to degenerated knee joints. However, there are around 20-30% of patients would develop significant pain problems despite uncomplicated total knee replacement. It accounts for major post-operative problems and burdens. Procedure specific analgesic method with multi-model analgesia technique is well-known to be useful in post-operative pain management, which reduces the post-operative pain score. Despite the use of multi-modal analgesic technique, pain after total joint replacement is still an unsolved issue. It prolongs the recovery period and increases post-operative analgesic consumption. Dexamethasone is a glucocorticoid which is associated with anti-inflammatory response. It is well known to have prophylaxis effect on post-operative nausea and vomiting. Perioperative single dose of systemic dexamethasone have shown to be useful for reduction in pain and cumulative opioid consumption. Meta-analysis from De Oliveira et al supports that dexamethasone (up to 0.2 mg/kg) is a safe and effective multimodal pain strategy after surgical procedures. However, this dose recommendation is not surgery specific. Recently, one review also supports even higher systemic steroid dose to ameliorate post-operative pain after hip and knee surgery. This is based on 3 RCTs using high dose steroid (125 mg methylpresnisolone and 40mg dexamethasone). However, large-scale safety and dose-finding studies are war