A response rate of 78% to medial opening wedge high tibial osteotomy (HTO) for knee osteoarthritis (OA) was reported in a study published in The Journal of Rheumatology. The response rate and predictors for response to medial opening wedge HTO for the treatment of knee OA have not been fully elucidated. Patients with knee OA who underwent medial opening wedge HTO at Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic in Canada between 2002 and 2014 were evaluated for response through 2 years. Response to treatment was defined as at least 20% relative improvement with a 10-point or more absolute change in pai ..read more

Wearable sensors are a reliable and feasible way to remotely assess gait and chair stand activity in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA), according to study results published in Arthritis Care & Research.  In light of the accelerated adoption of digital health technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers examined the possibility of remotely assessing gait and chair stand movement in adults with knee OA, using inertial sensors in a home setting. The study cohort included participants who were selected from a larger clinical study investigating an exercise intervention among ..read more

HealthDay News — Genicular nerve radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is associated with a significant reduction in pain for patients with knee osteoarthritis, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology, held from March 4 to 9 in Phoenix. Kaitlin Carrato, M.D., from MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and colleagues assessed data from 36 patients who underwent 47 primary genicular nerve RFAs (13 male and 21 female) for knee osteoarthritis from February 2022 to August 2022 and were followed for a mean 75.5 days. The researche ..read more

In individuals with hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA), the maintenance of exercise/physical activity optimizes physical function and health-related quality of life (HRQOL), according to study findings published in Arthritis Research & Therapy. Limited data are available on the long-term positive impact of regular exercise on physical function and HRQOL in individuals with hip and knee OA. Using data from the Portuguese Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases (EpiDoC) cohort, researchers sought to evaluate the effect of physical activity on HRQOL and physical function over a long-term follow-up in ..read more

In the setting of knee osteoarthritis, investigators found little evidence to support high-dose exercise over low-dose exercise, according to the results of their study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. According to the study authors, “Wide variability in the exercise content prescribed and reported in the literature has made it difficult to identify an optimal exercise dose that can be agreed upon.” To that end, they recruited 189 patients with knee osteoarthritis to participate in their study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02024126), which was conducted at locations in Sweden and ..read more

HealthDay News — For patients with isolated medial knee osteoarthritis, unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) yields faster functional recovery than total knee arthroplasty (TKA), according to a study published online Dec. 21 in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Boonchana Pongcharoen, M.D., from Thammasat University in Bangkok, and colleagues conducted a randomized trial comparing medial UKA and TKA in 99 patients with medial knee osteoarthritis (50 UKA and 49 TKA). Participants underwent the 2-minute walk test (2MWT) and the Timed Up-and-Go test (TUG) preoperatively and at six weeks ..read more

HealthDay News — A set of 15 serum biomarkers can predict clinically relevant knee osteoarthritis (OA) progression, according to a study published in the Jan. 25 issue of Science Advances. Kaile Zhou, from the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues aimed to identify serum biomarkers for clinically relevant knee OA progression defined as the combination of joint structure and pain worsening over 48 months. The researchers found that in a cohort of 596 individuals with knee OA, a set of 15 serum proteomic markers corresponding to 13 proteins yielded an area ..read more

Three pain trajectories that were influenced by baseline pain level and patient characteristics were identified among patients with hand osteoarthritis, according to the results of a study published in Rheumatology. Data collected at the Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands between 2009 and 2015 for the Hand OSTeoArthritis in Secondary care (HOSTAS) cohort were analyzed in this study. Australian/Canadian Osteoarthritis Hand Index (AUSCAN) pain measurement scores collected at 2 or more visits were used to establish trajectories of pain associated with hand osteoarthritis, and pre ..read more

HealthDay News — Patients with magnetic resonance imaging-confirmed degenerative meniscus tears do not benefit from arthroscopic partial meniscectomy (APM) versus nonsurgical or sham treatment, according to a study published online Jan. 13 in Osteoarthritis and Cartilage. Stan R. W. Wijn, from the Radboud Institute for Health Sciences in the Netherlands, and colleagues pooled individual participant data from four randomized controlled trials to examine the effectiveness of APM with magnetic resonance imaging-confirmed degenerative meniscus tears compared to nonsurgical or sham treatment. Knee ..read more

HealthDay News — For patients with knee osteoarthritis, high-dose exercise therapy is not superior to low-dose exercise therapy for most outcomes, according to a study published online Jan. 24 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Tom Arild Torstensen, R.P.T., from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues compared high-dose and low-dose exercise therapy with respect to knee function, pain, and quality of life in a randomized superiority trial involving patients with long-term symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. A total of 189 patients were assigned to high-dose therapy (11 exercises ..read more