Nicola Garrett TOTAL knee replacement patients may have a speedier recovery if they take anabolic-androgenic steroids, a small study suggests.
Patients taking steroids showed greater improvements in postoperative quadriceps and hamstring strength, bone mineral density and sit-to-stand testing, the authors reported in BMJ Open.
They also had a shorter hospital stay and needed less inpatient rehabilitation.
However a number of the findings were not statistically significant, leaving the evidence insufficient to recommend the routine administration of steroids to these patients.
Nevertheless, the results of their study justified a randomised trial to confirm the clinical significance of their findings, the authors concluded.
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