Pregabalin plus celecoxib for knee osteoarthritis: impact on pain, knee function recovery, and inflammatory...

Focusing on knee osteoarthritis (KOA) patients, we explore the impact of pregabalin plus celecoxib on patients' pain, knee function recovery, and inflammatory biomarkers. This was a retrospective study.

Firstly, 116 KOA patients were selected and grouped into a control group (n=55) receiving celecoxib and a research group (n=61) receiving pregabalin+celecoxib. Comparative inter-group analyses covered curative effects, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), American Knee Society Knee Score (AKSS), serum inflammatory biomarkers, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and adverse events. Subsequently, we explored therapeutic response-associated determinants.

The data indicated higher overall efficacy in the research group versus the control group. Pregabalin+celecoxib therapy also led to greater reductions in VAS scores, inflammatory biomarker levels, and each PSQI domain score than celecoxib alone, together with a more pronounced increase in AKSS scores across all dimensions. Similar total adverse events were found between the treatments. Finally, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and treatment modality were factors independently influencing curative efficacy.

Pregabalin+celecoxib therapy is definitely effective for KOA treatment. High TNF-α (≥110 μg/L) and sole celecoxib use increase the risk of ineffective treatment in KOA patients.