(CNN) Doctors and patients should beware if they're hoping to use steroid injections to relieve the pain associated with osteoarthritis.

The shots may be doing more harm than good.

In a new study published in the journal Radiology , researchers looked at 459 patients in a US hospital who had received one to three corticosteroid injections into a knee or hip.

Of those patients, 36 of them, or 8%, experienced adverse events in their joints, as shown on medical imaging tests.

Researchers saw acceleration of the patients' osteoarthritis progression, as well as other negative effects including subchondral insufficiency fracture, osteonecrosis and rapid joint destruction with bone loss.

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