A comparative study on the efficacy of Intra articular Methylprednisolone with oral Etoricoxib in the pain management of Psoriatic arthritis

• Author Details:   
• Prabhu Thilaak
• B. Arun Kumar
• G. Kannan
• Sudhir Paul

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Background: Psoriatic arthritis is the major complication of psoriasis and the most common medication used for pain management is NSAID’s, followed by intra-articular steroids.
Aim: To compare the efficacy of intra articular Methylprednisolone with oral Etoricoxib in the pain management of Psoriatic arthritis.
Materials and Methods: A prospective comparative study was conducted in the pain clinic of department of Anaesthesiology for a period of one year. A total of 120 patients with psoriatic arthritis were included for the study. The patients were divided into 2 groups of 60 in each group. Group A patients received oral etoricoxib 120 mg OD for 6 weeks and the Group B patients received only one dose of intra-articular methyl prednisolone in the dosage of 20 mg (1 ml). All the patients were followed for a period of 6 weeks with 2 follow-up visits. The outcome measures adopted were visual analogue pain scale and psoriatic arthritis quality of life score.
Results: The baseline score of both visual analogue pain score and PsAQAL was found to be high and the score decreases during the 1^st (1^st week) and 2^nd (6^th week) follow-up (P<.05). The similar type of results was also observed for intra-articular methyl prednisolone. The follow-up visit showed that the methylprednisolone had a lower score than the patients who received etoricoxib both in the 1^st week and 6^th week of follow-up (p<.05).
Conclusion: The intra-articluar methylprednisolone was found to be more beneficial than etoricoxib in terms of reduced pain score and psoriatic arthritis quality of life score.

Keywords: Intra-articular methylprednisolone, Etoricoxib, Visual analogue pain scale, Psoriatic arthritis quality of life score