Clinical results of Duloxetine hydrochloride for knee osteoarthritis with moderate or more pain

Abstract

Duloxetine hydrocloride was administered to 41 cases of osteoarthritis of the knee with persistent moderate to severe pain, to assess its efficacy. There was a significant positive correlation between the mean improvement rate of the visual analogue scale (VAS) score (50.9%) and the mean improvement rate of the Japanese Knee Osteoarthritis Measure (JKOM) score (42.9%). Adverse reactions were reported in 17 patients (41.5%), which is considered to be relatively high. Although the drug needs to be administered with special caution in the elderly, duloxetine was found to exert favorable treatment efficacy.