Better diagnosis and monitoring of osteoarthritis? New research by Oswestry scientists.
Researchers in Oswestry are aiming to find more effective ways of identifying osteoarthritis, which could lead to earlier diagnosis and better treatment of the common joint condition.
Although osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis, affecting more than two million older people in the UK and causing joint pain and stiffness, there is still no effective treatment. Patients have to rely on anti-inflammatory painkillers, which can cause serious side effects.
Now a team at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry has been awarded funding of almost £200,000 over three years from the Arthritis Research Campaign to try and identify “biomarkers” – substances produced in cartilage which occur in cartilage and can be measured in synovial fluid or blood - which would enable doctors to diagnose and monitor the onset and progression of osteoarthritis.
“At present there is no definitive means of diagnosing osteoarthritis and following its progression, which is a disadvantage to clinicians in identifying patients at different stages of the disease, and also to researchers and drug companies trying to understand and develop new ways to treat it,” explained Dr Sally Roberts, lead researcher and Director of Spinal Research at the hospital.
“In this project we aim to identify markers, or probably a group of markers, which will enable arthritis to be diagnosed, and treatment monitored. This could have many benefits to arthritis sufferers, not least by improving our understanding of the disease processes. It would also allow doctors to match the most appropriate treatment to each patient, help the pharmaceutical industry to develop new drug programmes and provide a useful means of monitoring the disease in drug trials.”
To be really useful, biomarkers have to be able to be measured reliably in body fluids, particularly in blood. Several candidate markers have been investigated in the last ten years, but none have been proved to be ideal.
The Oswestry team, who will be working in collaboration with colleagues at Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences, already have a large sample of synovial fluids and blood from patients with different degrees of osteoarthritic damage to their knees.
They will examine these samples to look for new molecules which might be able to be used as markers, and see how they change in osteoarthritis. “Finding reliable biomarkers in arthritis is very important; they would change when the disease was in an active phase, either increasing or decreasing depending on whether the disease was getting worse or improving, perhaps as a result of treatment,” added Dr Roberts.
