Introduction: Therapeutic joint injections are commonly used in canine medicine. Our goal was to
retrospectively investigate the safety of canine therapeutic intra-articular injections,
describing and correlating adverse events with the number of injections per visit,
joint injected, signalment, body condition score, type and volume of injectate.
Materials and Methods: A search of the Cornell University Hospital for Animals medical records for relevant
data was performed identifying dogs treated with therapeutic joint injections and
rechecked between 2010 and 2022.
Results: There were 505 joint injections across 283 visits by 178 client-owned dogs, including
the shoulder, elbow, carpus, hip, stifle, tarsus and metacarpophalangeal. Minor complications
were noted in 70 of 283 visits and included transient soreness (18.4%, lasting a median
of 2 days; range 1–20) and gastroenteritis (6.8%). One case of septic arthritis (1/505
joints), that possessed risks of a hematogenous source, was the only potential major
complication. Soreness was not correlated with the number of joints injected per visit.
Larger volumes of injectate normalized to body size were more likely to be associated
with transient soreness in the stifle and tarsus. Across injectates, only stem cells
had a significantly increased odds of soreness. Gastroenteritis was not associated
with the type of injectate.
Discussion/Conclusion: Therapeutic joint injections in dogs are safe with an extremely low risk of major
adverse effects. Transient soreness is a commonly expected minor adverse event. The
use of stem cells or larger injectate volumes (confined to the stifle and smaller
distal joints) may be more likely to invoke discomfort.
Acknowledgments:
There was no proprietary interest or funding provided for this project.
*The full manuscript has been published after acceptance of the abstract by the ACVSMR:
Miller AV, Carney PC, Markmann A, Frye CW. Retrospective analysis describes safety
of therapeutic joint injections in dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2023 Jan 2;1(aop):1–6.
