Is there any difference between Kenalog and Depo-Medrol for CTS?
31 December 2019 - 6:51pm
(Assuming the patient is the same dose).
I understand they're both used to treat CTS but I was wondering if one could be considered clinically "better" at all?
There are no satisfactory studies comparing the two steroids at equivalent doses so the answer is - we don't know! Methylprednisolone (depo-medrol) is often packaged pre-mixed with a local anaesthetic, which is unnecessary for CTS (or at least has also not been shown to confer any additional benefit when combined with a steroid so why include it?). There is an old paper by Susan Mackinnon (1982) comparing the toxicity of different steroids when injected directly into the nerve in an animal experiment - hydrocortisone and triamcinolone were thought to cause most damage but this was an animal experiment and you are not supposed to inject these things into the nerve anyway. Injection of anything outside the nerve did not result in any injury in this experiment. JB