Steroid Injection for Sickle Cell Arthropathy Pain Therapy

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is associated with arthropathy. Arthropathy causes pain which may require periarticular corticosteroid injection therapy. There is inadequate data about the suitability of steroid therapy in SCD patients. This prospective observational study examines the efficacy, and safety of periarticular steroid injections in SCD patients.

This is a cohort study of adult patients undergoing pain management at a pain clinic in Canada. Data collection includes patient's gender, age, race, smoking history, alcohol intake, analgesic usage, numeric pain score, sleep quality score, limb joint injections, post-injection analgesia, and post-injection complication. Pain is measured using numeric pain rating scale. Sleep quality is measured using the Likert Sleep scale. A change in the pain or sleep scores by 2-points is considered significant. Data are analyzed with IBM® SPSS® Statistics 25; using Student's t-test, ANOVA, Pearson Chi-square test, and regression analysis. P-value <0.05 is considered significant.

Inclusion criteria

• adult chronic pain patients
• sickle cell disease arthropathy
• periarticular steroid injection therapy
• regular sleep diary
• regular pain diary
• informed consent for therapy and diary review

Exclusion criteria

• pediatric patients
• patient without sickle cell disease arthropathy
• patient without periarticular steroid injection
• irregular sleep diary
• irregular pain diary