Re: Possible growth-suppressive effect of glucocorticoid joint injections

[Guest guest]

hi i have known of where the treatment of 1 does not effect the other

ir stunts the growth of the one thats getting treatment just like the pred

does to the whole body to some my sisters nephew has 1 shorter than the

other also my brother in law has 1 leg shorter

Robbin

[Guest guest]

How does an injection into one knee affect the growth of the other? If you read this article carefully, what it says is that the other leg actually shrunk!! Is this an actual effect or just an error in the synopsis?

Growth-suppressive effect of intra-articular glucocorticoids detected by knemometry.

After one intra-articular injection of 20 mg triamcinolone hexacetonide in the knee, the length of the contralateral lower leg was found to be reduced in 2 boys with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

[Guest guest]

Hi Steve,

I wondered if maybe the injection of steroids suppressed the arthritis in the injected knee to the point where (without inflammation) the leg was able to grow more rapidly than had been the case during cycles of inflammation. And maybe the growth of the other, non-injected, knee had been affected/lessened somewhat by arthritis, maybe not enough to warrant injecting that knee but enough to retard growth in that leg? I don't think they meant to say that the opposite leg had shrunk but rather ... that the leg that didn't get injected was then shorter than the other leg.

I think : )

Take Care,

Georgina

How does an injection into one knee affect the growth of the other? If you read this article carefully, what it says is that the other leg actually shrunk!! Is this an actual effect or just an error in the synopsis?

Growth-suppressive effect of intra-articular glucocorticoids detected by knemometry.

After one intra-articular injection of 20 mg triamcinolone hexacetonide in the knee, the length of the contralateral lower leg was found to be reduced in 2 boys with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

[Guest guest]

The beauty of scientific phrases is that they say exactly what you mean them to say, and the reader is not left trying to figure out what you meant. With my son's pauci, the affected knee grew more rapidly than the nonaffected one because the inflammation caused increased blood flow to the growth plate. that meant the nonaffected leg was shorter. Was this article a synopsis of a scientific study in the popular media? If so, by trying to shorten it, they may have made the phrase mean exactly the opposite . The effect of the injection in my sons knee was to reduce the difference in the length of his legs by reducing inflammation and thereby reducing growth in the affected leg.

[Guest guest]

Hi Steve,

That is very interesting. Are both of your son's legs now close to being the same length? I remember some time ago my son's doctor saying that for some children with JRA, a more rapid growth occurs in some affected joints. I guess this is what he was talking about. My son, though, hasn't had this happen.

Unfortunately, I only had access to the short abstract I posted. I found it not in the popular media but rather, while doing a search through PubMed. The referring page URL is:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_uids=10681639 & dopt=Abstract Those who have access to a medical library may be able to find a copy of the journal there. It's Horm Res 1999;52(2):95-6 The full text article is available only to subcribers or for a fee. For the most part, the online services that will send you re-prints of medical journal articles on request charge an exhorbitant amount of money to do so. There's usually just one set fee per article no matter what the length is. It often runs $12 or more per article and this one appears to be just two pages long. In the past, I've had some luck getting complementary copies of full text research articles I've been interested in reading by writing to those directly involved in the research. Since one of the authors of this study provided an email address, that may be another route if this is something you'd like to read more about.

Hope that helps,

Georgina

Heuck C, Wolthers OD, Herlin T.Department of Paediatrics, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark.

heuck@...

The beauty of scientific phrases is that they say exactly what you mean them to say, and the reader is not left trying to figure out what you meant. With my son's pauci, the affected knee grew more rapidly than the nonaffected one because the inflammation caused increased blood flow to the growth plate. that meant the nonaffected leg was shorter. Was this article a synopsis of a scientific study in the popular media? If so, by trying to shorten it, they may have made the phrase mean exactly the opposite . The effect of the injection in my sons knee was to reduce the difference in the length of his legs by reducing inflammation and thereby reducing growth in the affected leg.

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Yes his shorter, nonaffected leg is catching up a little. His MD still Rx'd a lift for the heel to make up for the difference for now. Also the muscles in the affected leg that were atrophied from non-use are almost back to normal. For us the injection has been a great help.

Steve