Systemic use of pentosan polysulphate in the treatment of osteoarthritis

Read RA, Cullis-Hill D, Jones MP · The Journal of Small Animal Practice

The authors reported better scores than placebo for lameness, pain on joint manipulation, body condition, and willingness to exercise, with the middle 3 mg/kg dose best and 5 mg/kg least effective — the origin of the 3 mg/kg regimen later carried into essentially every canine, equine, and human PPS trial.

Population

40 dogs with chronic osteoarthritis

Intervention

Subcutaneous PPS 0, 1, 3, or 5 mg/kg weekly for 4 weeks (double-blind, four-arm dose-response)

Comparator

The 0 mg/kg (placebo) arm

Limitations

Subjective clinical scoring; co-authored by Cartrophen's developer; full text is paywalled, so arm-level effect sizes could not be verified beyond the published summary.