Up to 10% of patients experience adverse joint events after intra-articular corticosteroid injections in the hip and knee, US researchers report.

Dr Ali Guermazi, of Boston University School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs Hospital, said that until now, patients were told such injections were safe, and if that they didn’t help, at least they weren’t harmful.

“It is not the case,” he said. “As suggested in our paper, patients should be told about these possible complications, and it is up to the patient to choose to get the injection or not.”

The quality of evidence supporting the practice was low, overall results were inconsistent, and one meta-analysis reported a 13% side effect rate (compared with 15% for placebo), the authors wrote in Radiology.