Structural progression is also driven by clinical symptoms in patients with osteoarthritis

✍ Scribed by Maxime Dougados

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 59 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.20212

✦ Synopsis

Epidemiologic studies document the burden of disease in society and evaluate risk factors for disease. Since recognition of such predisposing factors might lead to disease prevention, it is important to differentiate between predisposing factors for occurrence of disease, which are useful at a population level, and predisposing factors for progression of disease, useful at an individual level. It is also important to distinguish "nonmodifiable" factors (which are valuable from a pathophysiologic point of view) and "modifiable" factors (which are more valuable from the point of view of prevention or treatment at an individual level).

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a heterogeneous condition with a variety of patterns of expression. During the last decades, OA has been conceptualized as a disease process with common risk factors and a variable outcome (1). In this model, risk factors include age, genetic predisposition, abnormal biomechanics, and joint trauma (2,3). Such "conventional" factors, however, do not include the presence of clinical symptoms as potential predisposing factors of subsequent progression.