Asian Journal of Orthopaedic Research

Aims: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of therapy with high concentrations of topical NSAIDs in patients with hip osteoarthritis, depending on the volume of local fat deposits.

Materials and Methods: The study included 108 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of hip osteoarthritis. All patients were randomly divided into 2 large groups - according to the criteria for the volume of subcutaneous fat in the hip joint – patients with a skinfold thickness of 2 cm or less (group 1, n=68) and patients with a skinfold thickness of more than 2 cm (group 2, n=40). In addition, according to the used medication, the patients of each group were randomly divided equally into subgroups a (5% Ketoprofen gel) and b (5% Diclofenac sodium gel). The duration of treatment was 14 days. To assess the effectiveness of treatment, we studied the overall tolerability of the prescribed therapy, as well as the quality of life of patients at the time of inclusion in the study and after 14 days.

Results: In group 1 there was a significant improvement in the quality of life on all 5 scales of the questionnaire. When pairwise comparison of the studied parameters after the treatment, in the group of patients receiving the topical Diclofenac, the quality of life on all scales of the questionnaire was significantly better than in patients receiving Ketoprofen. All patients in group 2 showed a slight improvement in the quality of life in all parameters. The change in the studied indicators was not statistically significant and did not depend on the choice of topical NSAIDs.

Conclusion: Diclofenac has been shown to be more effective than Ketoprofen in patients with weak localized fat deposits. The efficiency of both drugs was insignificant in patients with pronounced fat deposits in the hip joint area.