Turkish Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2001 , Vol 47 , Num 2

Efficacy of Tramadol in Painful Knee Osteoarthritis

Meral Taşdemir 1 ,Gamze Alaylı 2 ,Ayhan Bilgici 2 ,Ömer Kuru 2
1 Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Fiziksel Tıp ve Rehabilitasyon Anabilim Dalı, Samsu
2 Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Fiziksel Tıp ve Rehabilitasyon Anabilim Dalı, Samsun, Türkiye

Objective: Tramadol is a centrally-acting analgesic that inhibits reuptake of norepinephrine and serotonin and is a µ opioid receptors agonist. We compared the efficacy of tramadol and naproxen for treatment of painful knee osteoarthrits (OA).

 

Methods: Fifty patients diagnosed as knee OA according to ACR (American College of Rheumatology) criteria were randomised to receive naproxen (NP) 1000 mg/day or tramadol (TR) 150 mg/day for four weeks. assessments were performed at baseline and at the end of the treatment. Primary efficacy measures were performed by using WOMAC pain score for pain, WOMAC physical function scale for activities of daily living (ADL).

 

Results: Baseline mean WOMAC pain scores for TR 9.14 and for NP 9.5 respectively. The final mean scores in TR and NP groups were 4.2 and 3.8. ın NP and TR groups pain scores significantly decreased after treatment (p<0.001 and p<0.001). ADL scores also significantly decreased after the treatment in the groups(p<0.001 and p<0.001). There were no significant differences at the end of the study  between the TR and NP groups in  general severity of current pain and in ability to perform activities of daily living.

 

Conclusion: the primary result of this study suggests that TR and NP are equally effective for the treatment of  the painful knee OA

Keywords : Knee osteoarthritis, pain, tramadol, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, analgesic therapy.