Knee denervation provides joint pain relief for patients with knee osteoarthritis.  Knee osteoarthritis is one of the most common issues seen by orthopedic professionals.  Patients with knee joint pain can utilize non-surgical pain management options including bracing, activity modification, therapy, and cortisone injections.  When these fail patients are traditionally offered joint replacement.  However, many patients are not arthroplasty candidates due to other illnesses, advanced age, obesity, or diabetes.  In addition, up to 20% of patients who undergo a knee replacement have residual knee pain.  Knee denervation provides an alternate treatment option for patients who are not arthroplasty candidates or who have residual pain after arthroplasty.  

Dr. Hustedt and colleagues conducted a study on the benefits of surgical knee denervation for the treatment of osteoarthrits in non-arthroplasty candidates.  Patients who had failed conservative therapies, including cortisone injections, were recruited to undergo surgical denervation.  Patients experienced a significant reduction in pain, improvement in knee function, and increases in overall quality of life that lasted greater than one year.  

A separate trial by Shin et al. at the Medical College of Wisconsin showed a significant reduction in pain in patients undergoing knee denervation who had residual knee pain after knee replacement.  

In addition to surgical knee denervation, radiofrequency ablation is also an option for patients patients with knee pain.  Large, multi-center, randomized trials, have shown the superiority of cooled radiofrequency ablation as compared to cortisone and hyaluronic acid injections. 

Ongoing trials are currently being conducted to compare surgical knee denervation with radiofrequency and other nerve related treatments.  

Links to clinical studies are provided below.