Suggested antianalgetic regimen in patients with osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a general term referring to degenerative lesions in joints. Most frequently knee, hip, neck and lumbosacral vertebral segment joints are affected. The most burdensome symptom for the OA patients is acute and chronic pain that results in gradual quality of life deterioration. On the other hand, unsuccessful or inappropriate pain treatment causes many negative consequences. It should be stressed that until now there is no effective, causative pharmacological therapy of degenerative articular lesions. Therefore symptomatic treatment, including analgetic and anti-inflammatory drugs remains the treatment of choice for this condition. Surgery is an ultimate option for advanced degenerative articular changes. Drugs used in OA treatment must have documented efficacy, confirmed by large randomised clinical trials results or by meta-analysis. The most recent data concerning this issue were published by the following: 1. The American College of Rheumatology (2000), 2. The American Pain Society (2002), 3. The European League Against Rheumatism – EULAR (2003). The recommendations determine what drugs and instillations and in what sequence should be used in pain treatment of the OA patients. We are of the opinion that this work is very practical in nature as it enables large number of orthopaedists to get acquainted with the discussed matter and provides them with an algorithm of analgetic treatment of patients with degenerative joint lesions.