Orthopedics, Rheumatology / 23.10.2024

Ankle arthritis might be less common than arthritis in the knee or hip, but it can be no less debilitating. It occurs when the cartilage in your ankle joint wears down, leading to pain, swelling, and stiffness. When you think about it, each step you take involves your ankle bearing considerable weight. If you have ankle arthritis, this will make even routine everyday activities like walking more difficult to manage. Thankfully, there are various treatment options available to manage symptoms and improve quality of life. These include seeing a foot and ankle orthopedic surgeon to discuss your options, and some surgical or medicinal options to consider, depending on the severity of your situation. Here is a look at the causes, symptoms, and different treatment approaches available, and suggestions on when it might be necessary to see a foot and ankle orthopedic surgeon. (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, Rheumatology / 06.06.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: W. Benjamin Nowell PhD Director of Patient-Centered Research at Global Healthy Living Foundation Columbia University in the City of New York New York, New York MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Given that lab tests are an important part of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis and monitoring, people living with the condition want and need to understand their lab results –also known as blood work – for patient-centered shared decision making about treatment. The presentation titled, “Patient Perceptions of Rheumatoid Arthritis Blood Work and Utility of a Test Predicting Response to New Medication: A Cross-sectional Survey in the ArthritisPower,” presented at the 76th EULAR European Congress of Rheumatology (June 2, 2023 in Milan, Italy) includes results from a recent ArthritisPower survey (n=405) that asked patients to share their perceptions about RA bloodwork, reasons their doctor orders these tests, and how results are used. (more…)
Author Interviews, Immunotherapy, Rheumatology / 29.03.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Siri Lillegraven MD MPH PhDVice director, REMEDY Center for treatment of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases Leader, Unit for Clinical Research, Diakonhjemmet HospitalAssociate professor, Institute of Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine University of Oslo   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Rheumatoid arthritis, or RA, is a chronic disease, with joint inflammation as the primary manifestation. Due to advances in RA therapy and care, an increasing number of patients achieve sustained remission without joint damage progression and functional loss. For these patients, dose-reduction of disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), or complete withdrawal of therapy could be favorable due to potential reductions in adverse events, burden of taking medication, and healthcare costs. Current treatment recommendations suggest that tapering of conventional synthetic DMARDs could be considered in patients in sustained remission, but there is a lack of data to guide treatment decisions. (more…)
Author Interviews / 03.02.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Tom Arild TorstensenTom Arild Torstensen Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society Division of Physiotherapy, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden and Holten Institute, Stockholm, Sweden MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: People suffering from pain due to knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a major and increasing problem. There there is today good scientific evidence for different forms of exercise therapy, but there is no agreement regarding what type of exercises and what dose of exercise therapy is best. Thus, we wanted to investigate if high dose medical exercise therapy is superior to low dose. (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, Mental Health Research, Rheumatology / 07.06.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kelly Gavigan, MPH Director, Data Management and Analytics Global Healthy Living Foundation MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study?  Response: COVID-19 is of particular concern for people living with autoimmune and rheumatic disease, not only because they have an increased risk of infection but also because of the heightened sense of isolation due to strict social distancing protocols that many patients continue to follow through today. As a result, we wanted to better understand if symptoms among the autoimmune and rheumatic disease patients in our ArthritisPower research registry were impacted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We previously conducted and reported on an analysis of patient reported outcome data from the ArthritisPower registry between the months of January 2020 to April 2021 at the American College of Rheumatology Convergence in 2021. We conducted a follow-up analysis between May and December 2021, which is our area of focus in this particular abstract. (more…)
Author Interviews, Orthopedics, Radiology, Rheumatology, UCSF, Weight Research / 18.11.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Silvia Schirò MD Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging University of California, San Francisco MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is worldwide the second most frequent cause of lower extremity disability, and it has a global incidence of 199 cases per 100.000, including over 14 million people with symptomatic knee OA in the US. Overweight and obese individuals have a higher incidence of knee OA due to excessive knee joint load. The association between physical activity and knee OA, has not been systematically addressed in overweight and/or obese subjects and its association seems to be controversial. On the one hand, mild to non-weight-bearing physical activities have been found to be beneficial in the management knee homeostasis, the physiologic knee joint load providing an optimized environment for the joint tissues. On the other hand, excessive fast-paced physical activity with high load-joint torsion such as racquet sports, ball sports and running have been found to have an increased incidence of knee injury compared to mild-moderate exercise such as swimming, bicycling and low-impact aerobics independent of body weight. (more…)
Author Interviews, NYU, Orthopedics / 10.08.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bruce N. Cronstein, MD Paul R. Esserman Professor of Medicine NYU School of Medicine Director, NYU-H+H Clinical and Translational Science Institute Director, Division of Translational Medicine NYU Langone Health New York, NY 10016  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis affecting about 10% of the adult population and 25% of the population over 60. We had previously found that adenosine, a molecule generated by nearly all cell types, is critical for maintaining cartilage health by activating specific adenosine receptors on the surface of cells (A2A receptors). Moreover, giving adenosine into the joint could prevent deterioration of cartilage (progression of osteoarthritis) in a rat model of osteoarthritis. Because people do not usually go for treatment of osteoarthritis until they have developed symptoms we asked whether administration of adenosine or adenosine that had been modified to be a more potent and specific stimulus for A2A receptors, carried in fat bubbles called liposomes, could reverse osteoarthritis after it had already started. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Orthopedics, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Surgical Research / 19.05.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alyson Cavanaugh, PT, PhD Joint Doctoral Program in Epidemiology University of California, San Diego/ San Diego State University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: More than 700,000 total knee replacements are performed annually in the United States, but there is a racial disparity in outcomes after the surgery. If the knee replacement procedure is considered a highly effective treatment, why don't black women present with the same outcomes as whites? Physical function when going into surgery has a large impact on the potential functional outcomes after surgery. Our hypothesis was that black women were presenting to surgery with poorer physical function, which was contributing to poorer functional outcomes after surgery. (more…)
Author Interviews, Rheumatology / 11.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kelly Gavigan, MPH Manager, Research and Data Science CreakyJoints  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the past fifteen years, there have been significant improvements in quality of life among people living with rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease with the introduction of biologics and targeted therapies. However, despite a variety of treatments to try, patients often seek non-pharmacological alternative and complementary treatments, such as marijuana for medical use (MMU), to help manage their condition and symptoms. MMU is becoming increasingly available in the United States as different states legalize it under specific circumstances. Legal or not, according to a survey conducted by CreakyJoints using the ArthritisPower Research Registry (n=1,059 participants), people with arthritis are trying marijuana for medical use.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Pain Research, Rheumatology / 11.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Féline PB Kroon MD Department of Rheumatology Leiden University Medical Centre LUMC · MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Hand osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent joint condition that causes pain, functional disability, and decreased quality of life, for which patients frequently consult health-care providers. Symptoms usually fluctuate over time, with episodes of joint swelling and erythema. Evidence from previous studies has shown that inflammation plays an important role in the disease, being an important predictor for pain and radiographic damage progression. Therefore, we hypothesized that inflammation could be a treatment target in OA, and we investigated this using prednisolone, a potent anti-inflammatory drug. The aim of the HOPE study was to investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of a six-week course of prednisolone 10 mg daily in patients with painful hand OA who had evidence of synovial inflammation. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pain Research, Rheumatology / 12.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: W. Benjamin Nowell, Ph.D. Director of Patient-Centered Research CreakyJoints, Principal Investigator of ArthritisPower MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the past fifteen years, the treatment options for people diagnosed and living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have grown. There are now many medications (particularly biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, or bDMARDs) proven to improve disease symptoms and immune system over activity, thereby reducing inflammation and joint damage. The American College of Rheumatology recommends a treat-to-target approach, which has the patient and rheumatologist setting goals for treatment effectiveness and making adjustments over time to meet those goals. This study aimed to determine if rheumatoid arthritis patients are satisfied with their treatment. The goal of this study was to identify the following: patients’ satisfaction with current RA treatment, the current unmet needs perceived by patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States, the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis that are most bothersome to patients, and the impact of symptoms on function and quality of life that may lead patients to need alternative treatments.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Bristol Myers Squibb, Rheumatology / 26.06.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sean Connolly, Ph.D. Director of Non-Registrational Data Generation Study Director for ASCORE Bristol-Myers Squibb MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: ASCORE is a two-year, prospective multicenter study to observe retention and response rates of moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients receiving ORENCIA® (abatacept), administered subcutaneously via a pre-filled syringe, in routine clinical practice. Findings shared at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR 2019) are the results from the first 12 months. An important objective of our development program is to understand how well we can replicate findings from our clinical trials among a real-world patient population. In the case of ASCORE, which looked at approximately 3,000 patients, both bio-naïve and patients receiving later-line therapies, these data add to the body of research that may help inform physicians treating patients with RA. Patients participating in ASCORE were divided into two distinct cohorts at the outset of the study: bio-naïve and patients previously administered one or more biologic agents. The primary endpoint is to estimate the rentention rate of patients in each cohort over a 24-month period. Furthermore, ASCORE examines the patient populations across ten countries to understand factors including: how ORENCIA is prescribed, characteristics of patients from each country (socio-demographic data, medical history, co-morbidities, etc.), and population health statistics within each country. This sub-analysis is factored into patient response to treatment across both cohorts, which may help physicians better understand how and why certain populations demonstrate a specific retention rate. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, MRI, Rheumatology / 07.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Signe Møller-Bisgaard MD, PhD Rigshospitalet Center for Rheumatology and Spine Diseases Copenhagen Center for Arthritis Research  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: The background was that to avoid long-term consequences of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) such as progressive joint damage progression leading to functional impairment and loss of quality of life, it is essential for patients with RA to achieve clinical remission, which is a disease state with no clinical signs and symptoms of disease activity. But despite treating our patients according to current clinical recommendations using targeted treatment strategies, so that the patients reach a state of remission, joint damage progression still occurs in one out of four patients. We knew, that MRI inflammatory findings such as synovitis and bone marrow edema are present in patients in clinical remission and are of prognostic value. In particular bone marrow edema has shown to be a strong predictor of erosive joint damage progression. In the IMAGINE-RA randomized clinical trial we therefore wanted to investigate if an MRI treat-to-target strategy targeting absence of bone marrow edema versus a conventional disease activity-guided treat-to-target strategy would improve clinical and radiographic outcome in rheumatoid arthritis patients in clinical remission.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Bristol Myers Squibb, Rheumatology, Smoking / 24.10.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pr Gilles Boire, M.D., M. ScService de rhumatologie Département de médecine Faculté de médecine et des sciences de la santé Université de Sherbrooke MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients are heterogeneous at initial presentation, in response to treatments and according to their outcomes. No clinical features and very few biomarkers, except autoantibodies such as anti-Cyclic Citrullinated Peptides/Proteins (CCP), identify patients with divergent prognostic trajectories. To help improve early prognostic classification, we initiated 20 years ago the single center longitudinal observational Early Undifferentiated PolyArthritis (EUPA) study of consecutive patients presenting with recent-onset inflammatory polyarthritis, 90% of which fulfill classification criteria for RA at baseline. Our registry includes 739 very early RA patients (median symptom duration 3.6 months), rapidly treated to joint remission (i.e. 0/66 swollen joint) and followed over 5 years. Each patient visit is linked to biosamples and to sequential radiographs scored according to the modified Sharp/van der Heijde method. As we had the clinical impression that clinical features of recruited patients were evolving, we compared patients from 3 periods (1998-2004; 2005-2010; 2011-2017).  (more…)
Author Interviews, Emory, JAMA, Orthopedics / 25.09.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. David H. Howard PhD Department of Health Policy and Management Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: There is a lot of skepticism that physicians respond to evidence, especially when trials report that widely-used, separately-reimbursed procedures are not effective. Physicians are reluctant to abandon treatments. This study shows that in the case of knee arthroscopy, evidence has made a difference. The use of knee arthroscopy declined by 23% in Florida between 2002 and 2015. This change occurred despite increases in the prevalence of osteoarthritis.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Pain Research, Rheumatology, Weight Research / 19.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Steve Messier Director of the J.B. Snow Biomechanics Laboratory J.B Snow Biomechanics Laboratory Wake Forest University MedicalResearch.com: Why did you undertake this study? Response: This was a secondary analysis of the Intensive Diet and Exercise for Arthritis (IDEA) clinical trial originally published in JAMA in 2013, Volume 310, Number 12, pages 11263-1273. We were interested to see if losing 20% of your body weight had any additional benefits compared to a 10% weight loss that we previously have shown to be beneficial. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, Rheumatology / 16.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Lisa van Baarsen PhD Principal Investigator at the Amsterdam Rheumatology and Immunology Cente Academic Medical Center the Netherlands  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The discovery that autoantibodies can be present years before the onset of clinical symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) enables us to study autoantibody positive individuals who are at risk of developing RA. In patients with established disease the target tissue of RA, the synovial joints, is characterized by cellular infiltration and inflammation. Moreover, successful therapy decreases this synovial inflammation. In the past, our department already showed (PMID: 21177292; PMID: 24574210) that in autoantibody positive at risk individuals there is no overt cellular infiltration present in the synovium. In the current study we performed a so called discovery-based approach to investigate at a genome-wide gene expression level (using microarrays) whether the synovium is altered at a molecular level before onset of rheumatoid arthritis. Our molecular and microscopic studies on synovial biopsies obtained from autoantibody positive individuals indeed revealed interesting differences between those at risk individuals who developed disease after follow up and those who did not. (more…)
Author Interviews, Rheumatology / 16.06.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Maarten Boers, MSc, MD, PhD Professor of Clinical Epidemiology Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics VU University Medical Center--F wing MedFac Amsterdam, Netherlands MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Mortality in rheumatoid arthritis is increased. Recent (short-term) studies suggest the situation is improving, but in studies with long (>10-year) follow up the increased mortality persists. We have been following a trial cohort of rheumatoid arthritis patients treated right from the beginning of disease (the COBRA trial) for 23 years and now, for the first time, show normal mortality compared to the general population. (more…)
Author Interviews, Orthopedics, Pain Research, Rheumatology / 02.05.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: “dog” by Neil Mullins is licensed under CC BY 2.0Deborah S. Cummins, PhD Director, Research, Quality and Scientific Affairs American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons On behalf of the researchers: David Jevsevar, MD, MBA; Gregory A. Brown, MD, PHD, and Deborah S. Cummins, PhD MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: It is estimated that individuals have a 45% risk of developing knee osteoarthritis (OA) in their lifetime. As a result of the shifting demographics of the US, where an increasing percentage of the population is older than 65, the burden of knee OA will continue to increase. To help deal with this burden, effective nonsurgical treatments are needed to manage knee OA symptoms associated with pain and function before surgical intervention becomes necessary. To determine which non-surgical options are best, we performed a network meta-analysis exploring mixed treatment comparisons for nonsurgical treatment of knee osteoarthritis in order to effectively rank the various nonsurgical treatment options from best to worst. Our network meta-analysis suggests that the single most effective nonsurgical treatment for improving knee function is function is naproxen, followed by diclofenac, celecoxib, and ibuprofen. When considering pain and function together, our data suggest that naproxen is the most effective treatment followed by IA corticosteroid injection. The single most effective short-term (4-6 weeks) treatment for decreasing pain is intra-articular (IA) corticosteroid injection, followed by ibuprofen, IA platelet rich plasma, and naproxen. Additionally, intra-articular hyaluronic acid injections never achieved a rank in the top five treatments for pain, function, or combined pain and function. An analysis of 12 articles also found that HA is not significantly different than IA placebo in effect. (more…)
Author Interviews, NYU, Rheumatology, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 20.03.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jonathan Samuels, MD Associate Professor of Medicine Division of Rheumatology NYU Langone Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  Response: A high percentage of obese patients have painful knee osteoarthritis, and have difficulty losing weight as well as treating the knee pain with a self-perpetuating cycle.  MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response:  Patients who lost weight with their laparoscopic banding surgeries also experienced marked improvement of their knee pain. We found a significant correlation between the degree of improvement in the body mass index and reduction of knee pain in our cohort. In addition, the patients who experienced the most relief from weight loss surgeries had their procedures at earlier ages, as well as those who never had a traumatic knee injury nor developed osteoarthritis in other joints. (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Pain Research, Rheumatology / 21.02.2018

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Sarah Kingsbury PhD Osteoarthritis Strategic Lead Deputy Section Head, Musculoskeletal Medicine and Imaging Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine University of Leeds MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Osteoarthritis of the hand is a painful and disabling condition, estimated to effect up to 31 per cent of people aged over 70. It can stop people from carrying out everyday activities and can limit their quality of life. The first-line pharmacological treatments for hand osteoarthritis, including paracetamol and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, are often not effective and are associated with side effects. Doctors have used hydroxychloroquine, an established treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, as an off-label alternative, supported by increasing evidence that inflammation is a factor in osteoarthritis. Until now, there has not been a large-scale study into whether using hydroxychloroquine works. HERO was a 12 month randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled, pragmatic trial, designed with a view to replicate anecdotal reports of hydroxychloroquine use in clinical practice, and  powered to detect a moderate effect equivalent to that for NSAIDs in this population. The study involved 248 patients at 13 NHS hospitals in England: all had the condition for at least 5 years, had changes to the joints in their hands consistent with osteoarthritis and reported moderate to severe pain on at least half of the days in the previous three months to the study commencing. Participants were randomised 1:1 to either hydroxychloroquine or placebo and followed up at 3 monthly intervals for 12 months. The study found that patients initially reported a small reduction in the severity of pain before the improvement plateaued. However, a similar amount of change was seen in both the group receiving hydroxychloroquine medication and the group taking the placebo. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Rheumatology, Weight Research / 04.12.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeffrey A. Sparks, M.D., M.M.Sc. Assistant Professor of Medicine Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy Department of Medicine Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We compared women diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) during follow-up in the Nurses’ Health Study and matched women without RA during the same index time period. Women with RA had higher mortality than women without RA. In both groups, those that had severe weight loss (>30 pounds), had the highest mortality after the early RA/index period. Weight gain in the early RA period was not associated with mortality for either group. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, J&J-Janssen, Pharmaceutical Companies, Rheumatology / 13.11.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Atul A. Deodhar, MD, MRCP, FACP, FACR Professor of Medicine Division of Arthritis & Rheumatic Diseases Medical Director, Rheumatology Clinics Medical Director, Immunology Infusion Center Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU)  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The Phase 2, randomized, double-blind, placebo–controlled, multicenter trial was designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of guselkumab (Tremfya®) compared with placebo in adults with active psoriatic arthritis, despite having received treatment with standard-of-care therapies, including anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha agents. In an observed analysis presented at ACR 2017, more than 70 percent of patients receiving guselkumab achieved at least a 20 percent improvement in signs and symptoms of disease (ACR 20) at week 56.  Findings also showed that improvements in tender and swollen joints, skin clearance, pain and physical function, and patient-reported quality of life outcomes reported at week 24, were maintained through week 56 in patients receiving guselkumab maintenance therapy (subcutaneous injections every eight weeks).  (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Pain Research, Rheumatology / 16.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jos Runhaar, PhD Erasmus MC Department of General Practice Rotterdam The Netherlands MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Most international guidelines report an overall lack of efficacy of glucosamine for osteoarthrits. We however know that it is a very heterogeneous disease. Therefore, it is possible that there are certain subgroups of osteoarthritis patients that actually might have effect from glucosamine; for instance subgroups based on different pathologies underlying the clinical presentation, different co-morbidities, or different disease stages. For investigating efficacy in subgroups large sample sizes are needed, and certain methodological techniques are necessary, to get a valid and robust answer. Several years ago, a group of renowned international osteoarthritis researchers started the OA Trial Bank especially for investigating these subgroup effects of osteoarthritis treatments and collect individual patient data of worldwide-performed intervention studies in osteoarthritis patients. When using the individual patient data of multiple studies, it brings us the large sample size and allows us to use the right methods. We do these subgroup analyses in the OA Trial Bank for many different interventions, not just for glucosamine. The subgroup analyses for glucosamine and for corticosteroid injections are published, the others are ongoing (for instance exercise, orthoses and topicals) or planned and still waiting for funding. The study did show, however, that glucosamine can be extremely beneficial for pets, and specifically dogs who have joint related issues. Knowing the most valuable sources of glucosamine for dogs is important, as it can be extracted and gained from multiple sources, and each have their own varied levels of quality and potency. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Osteoporosis / 23.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jean-Yves Reginster M.D.,PH.D. Professor of Epidemiology, Public Health and Health Economics Head of the Bone and Cartilage Metabolism Unit University of Liège MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Whereas several recommendations, issued by scientific societies, recommend to use Symptom-Modifying Slow Acting Drugs (SYSADOAs) for the symptomatic and structural management of osteoarthritis, no medication is currently registered, in this particular indication, by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This study is the first study, conducted, with a SYSADOA which fully complies with the requirements of the EMA for the assessment of drugs to be used in the treatment of osteoarthritis, i.e. a six-month duration, two co-primary endpoints (pain and function) and a three-arm design, with a placebo and an active comparator. The main findings are that pharmaceutical grade chondroitin sulfate provides an improvement in pain and function, which is greater than placebo and not distinguishable from celecoxib, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug currently licensed for the symptomatic management of osteoarthritis. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Rheumatology / 13.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jin Qin, ScD, MS Epidemiologist Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Chamblee, GA 30341  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The hand is one of the sites most commonly affected by osteoarthritis (OA) but is often understudied compared with knee and hip OA. Many people with hand OA have significant symptoms, impaired hand strength and function, and disability in activities of daily living, like using a smart phone or a computer keyboard, and opening a jar. Lifetime risk is the probability of developing a condition over the course of a lifetime. In this study, we estimated that 40% of adults will develop symptomatic hand OA in their lifetimes. Nearly one in two women (47%) and one in four men (25%) will develop the condition. Whites have a 41% lifetime risk, compared with 29% for blacks. The lifetime risk among individuals with obesity is 47%, which is 11 percentage points higher than those without obesity. (more…)
Author Interviews, Baylor College of Medicine Houston, Merck, Rheumatology / 07.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Grace H. Lo MD MSc Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine Medical Care Line and Research Care Line, Houston VA HSR&D Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety Michael E. DeBakey Medical Center, Houston, TX MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis. Many people who have signs of osteoarthritis on x-rays do not necessarily complain of pain. Presently, there are no known strategies for preventing the development of pain in this group of people. This study suggests that if these people have noisy knees (otherwise known as “crepitus”), they are at higher risk for developing pain within the next year compared to the people who do not have noisy knees. Future studies that target people who have x-ray signs of osteoarthritis, who do not complain of pain, but do report noisy knees, hold the promise of identifying interventions that can prevent knee pain. (more…)