Basal thumb arthritic pain: To inject one or both sides?

Basal thumb arthritis is a common problem, which is frequently dealt with by intra-articular steroid injection into the first carpometacarpal joint (1st CMCJ), however different health care providers provide it differently. The aim of this paper is to present the result of a standardized procedure, trying to decrease the variables that could affect outcome interpretation. Thirty patients, who had 1st CMCJ osteoarthritis were assessed then, provided with intra-articular steroid injection, 26.3% of them were males, 73.7% females, 31.6% had a right sided injection, 31.6% left sided, and 37.8% bilateral. Patient did show an overall improvement, one month after the injection, this result was more pronounced in those who had bilateral 1st CMCJ arthritis (with a p value of 0.0007).