Elusive trochanteric bursitis relief

Excerpt

An interesting observation draws attention to technique issues. Nissen et al. [1] found that intra-trochanteric injection with betamethasone produced no greater long-term benefit than saline injections for greater trochanteric pain syndrome. One, three, and six month post-injection pain intensity was unaffected by this intervention. Their recommendation that future patients be advised of unlikely long-term benefit would seem reasonable, except for two fundamental methodologic flaws precluding such clinical application of their findings. Betamethasone is water soluble [2] and the terminology trochanteric bursa may be misleading. There are actually four bursa surrounding attachments to the femoral greater trochanter [3]. Those have been variously reported to include the gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, subgluteus medius, and subgluteus minimus tendons [3, 4]. …