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Evolution Towards Carpal-Metacarpal OA Nonsurgical Cure
Submit responseIn treating many patients with OA of the base of the thumb, I have been both frustrated and satisfied with patient outcomes. Easy cures are infrequent. Analgesics,Nsaids, cortisone injections, and bracing have been the mainstay of therapy.Too often these haven't worked in the short term and surgery has been done with variable results. For these reasons, I appreciated the article entitled "Splint for Base-of-Thumb Osteoarthritis" by Rannou et al. MY experience does concur that one can obtain a long term benefit with conservative treatment. Additional benefit may be obtained from topical therapy, intra-articular hyaluronate injections and other physical therapy modalities such as ultrasound. Further, complementary therapies with fish oils, glucosame, plant antiinflammatories can add to the management. Unfortunately, OA of the thumb is at a disadvantage in our society due to rapidly increasing use of our hands with technological devices such as PDA's, game devices and the Internet. OA of the thumb is here to stay and it will take hundreds of years for evolutionary changes to help. Thus we need to establish a multidisciplinary approach to find a solution.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared