We present a unique prospective study which estimates the median sustained stage related improvement in pain and hand function predicting symptomatic relief period with high accuracy with a single steroid injection. Patients were grouped into stages, I to IV according to the Eaton and Glickel radiological criteria. The steroid injection contained 40mg triamcelone and 1% lido-caine. The response was assessed by DASH and a visual analogue score before and at six-week interval. We used the Kaplan-Meier method to estimate median length of sustained improvement by grade of disease, with 95% confidence interval. All the patients were injected by an upperlimb physiotherapist (DD). Post injection review was carried out by an independent observer(MK). Forty patients were studied: 33 females and 7 males. The age ranged from 53 to 81 years, (mean 65years). No patient was lost to follow-up. Mean duration of symptoms were 36 months. Six patients has stage I disease(15%), eighteen patients had stage II disease (45%), ten patients had stage III disease (25%) and six patients has stage IV disease (15%). Pain score ranged from 4 to 9 on visual analogue score. Reduction in pain visual analogue score was noticed in all but 3 patients. With the exception of Grade III patients, DASH scores decreased significantly at 6 weeks (Grade I 14.9, Grade II 19.3, Grade III 6.2 and Grade IV 10.0.). With the exception of Grade IV patients, pain scores decreased significantly at 6 weeks. In Grade II patients, over half had sustained symptomatic relief at 6 months. So on average, we can expect grade I patients to sustain symptomatic relief for an average of 17 weeks. The true average is likely to be between 13 and 21 weeks. For grade II patients, most will still have improved at 6 months. Grade III and IV patients have an identical prognosis of 4 weeks, though the true prognosis may be between 2 and 6 weeks. In conclusion it is possible to predict the period of symptomatic improvement in each of the four disease stages. This allows the treating clinician to discuss the outcome of treatment with reasonable accuracy.
