New Edinburgh research offers hope to sufferers of common bone disease
Sufferers of a common, painful bone disease are set to benefit from exciting new research being spearheaded in Edinburgh.
Dr Anne Langston, from the University of Edinburgh, has been awarded a two-year grant of £134, 500 from the Arthritis Research Campaign to pinpoint the causes of Paget’s disease of bone, a little-understood condition affecting up to a million people over the age of 55, which can lead to pain, bone deformities and fractures.
Dr Langston will investigate a number of possibilities – whether the condition is caused by genetic mutations, low consumption of milk in childhood, heavy physical work or sporting activity, virus infection, or a combination of these factors.
She also hopes to develop a simple method of identifying patients with Paget’s disease who will go on to develop complications so that treatment can be started before irreversible damage to the bones has occurred.
“In Paget’s disease the renewal and repair process that normally keeps people’s bones healthy is accelerated, causing overgrowth of the bones and leading to deformity, deafness, arthritis and fractures,” explained Dr Langston, a research fellow at the Molecular Medicine Centre at the Western General Hospital.
“Although some people develop these complications and can end up crippled, others do not, for reasons that are not clear. If we can develop a tool for detecting those of highest risk of severe disease, that will help clinicians to give these patients drugs called bisphosphonates, which will help to keep their bones stronger.”
Dr Langston is also the co-ordinator of the largest-ever trial on the treatment of Paget’s disease, which is also funded by the Arthritis Research Campaign. She plans to use the extensive data and samples provided by the patients who took part in the four-year trial as the basis of this additional research.
She added: “It’s long been thought that the development of Paget’s may be partly caused by a virus suffered by a person earlier in their life, which sits in the bones and then is triggered or activated in later life, but this has never been proved. Our cohort of patients from the clinical trial will provide an excellent opportunity to study the role of persistent measles infection as a possible factor, and the clarify the role of genetics.”
Dr Langston’s research is due to starts this month. The Arthritis Research Campaign is a major funder of research into diseases of the bone and joint in Edinburgh, currently investing almost £4m of funding in the city.
