Intra-articular Corticosteroid Injections for Symptomatic Knee Osteoarthritis: What the Orthopaedic Provider Needs to Know.

Intra-articular corticosteroid injections have been used for decades in the management of symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee and remain a common practice. The pain relief from a steroid injection is thought to work by reducing inflammation within the arthritic knee. Substantial variability remains among providers with regard to the technique used to perform the procedure, including the site of the injection, the medications injected, and the level of sterility.

Opening a New Level II Trauma Center Near an Established Level I Trauma Center: Is This Good for Trauma Care?

Objectives: To describe how the initiation and later removal of a provisional level II trauma center (PL2TC) status at a community hospital affected the volume and severity of injured patients seen at an established academic level 1 trauma center (AL1TC).

Methods: Census data including counts of injury ICD-9 codes and patients seen in the emergency department (ED) and trauma center at an AL1TC were collected monthly from January 2010 to October 2014. An interrupted time series analysis was used to model the monthly census data with 2 time interruptions to describe the change in patient volume at the interruptions.

Blood transfusion associated with shoulder arthroplasty.

Background: Studies have reported high rates of transfusion in shoulder arthroplasty. This study was conducted to evaluate the rate of transfusion at our institution, to confirm reported risk factors for transfusion, and to look for changes over time.We hypothesized that transfusion rates associated with shoulder arthroplasty at our institution are lower than those recently reported and that the incidence of transfusion is higher in individuals with low preoperative hemoglobin, with revision arthroplasty, and in older individuals.