People with mild to moderate wear-and-tear knee arthritis felt less pain and had better mobility after low-dose radiation treatment, researchers reported. File Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
People with aching knees might receive relief from a course of low-dose radiation therapy, a new study suggests.
People with mild to moderate wear-and-tear knee arthritis felt less pain and had better mobility after radiation treatment, researchers reported Sunday at a meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology in San Francisco.
"People with painful knee osteoarthritis often face a difficult choice between the risks of side effects from pain medications and the risks of joint replacement surgery," said principal investigator Dr. Byoung Hyuck Kim, an assistant professor of radiation oncology at Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea.
"There's a clinical need for moderate interventions between weak pain medications and aggressive surgery, and we think radiation may be a suitable option for those patients especially when drugs and injections are poorly tolerated," he added in a news release.
