Conservative Treatment of Ankle Osteoarthritis

Abstract

Despite the disabling nature of ankle osteoarthritis (OA), there is poor scientific evidence for a conservative treatment compared to the hip and knee OA. In this regard, most of the treatment options in use are not based on clinical studies of the ankle, and they are extracted from evidence obtained from clinical studies of other lower limb joints. However, this does not seem to be a good idea, since the aetiology of ankle OA is quite different from that of the hip or knee. Nonpharmacological and pharmacological treatments such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, hyaluronic acid, corticosteroid, platelet-rich plasma injection and mesenchymal stem cells injections have been reported. However, further research is required in this field to obtain a specific clinical practice guideline for the conservative treatment of ankle OA.

Keywords: biologics; conservative treatment ankle osteoarthritis; mesenchymal stem cells; platelet-rich plasma; viscosupplementation.

Figure 1

Conservative Treatment of Ankle Osteoarthritis: non-pharmacological (first step) and pharmacological (second step) strategies.