Highly selective peripheral nerve radio frequency ablation for the treatment of severe knee osteoarthritis

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of highly selective peripheral nerve radiofrequency (RF) ablation for the pain caused by severe knee osteoarthritis (OA). A total of 96 patients with knee OA were randomly divided into two groups. The 49 patients in group A were treated with highly selective peripheral nerve RF ablation group and the 47 patients in group B were treated with sodium hyaluronate injection. Visual analogue scale (VAS), Lysholm knee score (LKS), and pain relief before treatment and at 3 days and 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after treatment were compared. At each time point after treatment in group A, both VAS and LKS scores were significantly different compared with before treatment (P<0.05). At 3 days, and at 3 and 6 months after treatment in group B, VAS scores were significantly different from before treatment (P<0.05) and at 9 and 12 months after treatment, the scores were not significantly different from those before treatment. In addition, LKS scores were only significantly different at 3 months after treatment compared with before treatment (P<0.05) and not significantly different after that time point. Furthermore, compared with group B, the rates of effective pain relief in group A were significantly higher at each time point after treatment (P<0.05). Compared with sodium hyaluronate injection, highly selective peripheral nerve RF ablation of the knee was more effective, easy to operate and had no significant adverse effects for the treatment of knee OA.