• Sun Wook Moon, Eui Ho Park, Jin Sung Park, Seung Won Lee, Hye Rim Suh, Sang Hyun Park, Seung Zhoo Yoon, Kun Woo Park, and Hee Chul Han.
• Department of Physiology, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
• Pain Med. 2020 Aug 1; 21 (8): 1572-1580.

ObjectiveDrug injections and surgery are popular treatments for knee joint osteoarthritis. However, these treatments are invasive, and new noninvasive treatments with similar or better efficacy are needed. Here, we evaluated the application of 4.4 MHz of pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) as a new treatment.MethodsAcute arthritis was induced by injection of carrageenan into the intra-articular space of the knee in male rats. At 4.5 hours after arthritis induction, PRF with the treatment protocol of three seconds on and off was applied to the affected knee joint for 20 minutes. The changes in pain behavior were evaluated by comparing the peak weight load values of both hind paws at pretreatment and four, six, seven, eight, and 24 hours after treatment. And we also used Western blotting and immunohistochemistry to measure the inflammatory changes in the synovial membrane of the inflamed knee.ResultsWe found that the 20-minute application of PRF with the treatment protocol significantly recovered the weight load reduction at six-, seven-, and eight-hour time points after carrageenan injection. COX-2 and IL-1β levels were significantly reduced in the inflamed rats after PRF application at six and eight hours post-carrageenan injection. Immunohistochemistry showed that PRF significantly reduced inflammatory cell infiltration at six hours post-carrageenan injection.Conclusions. Our results indicate that noninvasive PRF application inhibited pain-related behavior and decreased inflammatory cytokine expression in the inflamed knee joints of rats. Accordingly, PRF application can serve as a potential therapeutic treatment to relieve pain associated with peripheral joint/tissue damage or inflammation.© 2019 American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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