Introduction
OSTEOARTHRITIS
Intra-articular (IA) injection therapy has an important role in the treatment of osteoarthritis, especially in patients with insufficient response to medication or comorbidities that restrict medical treatmentIntra-articular polynucleotide (IA PN) has been proposed as an alternative of IA HA for viscosupplementation over the past decadeSeveral studies have compared the efficacy and safety of IA PN and HA, and IA PN has shown comparable or superior clinical outcomes than those of IA HA. Vanelli et alHowever, previous comparative studies have mainly used only low or medium MW HAs, and studies that have used IA HMWHA or cross-linked HA as a control for IA PN are very limited. Considering that many studies have reported the superior efficacy of IA HMWHA compared to low-or medium MWHATherefore, the present randomized controlled study aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of IA PN compared with IA HMWHA in the treatment of knee OA. We hypothesized that IA PN could be a useful alternative of HMWHA in the treatment of knee OA.