Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of chronic arthritis causing severe pain,disability,loss of function and affecting the quality of life of the patients.
Studies have shown that 15% of the world population suffers from osteoarthritis which includes 39 million people in the European countries and more than 20 million of Americans. The number of patients affected is on the rise and by 2020 this figure would have probably multiplied. In Malaysia, 9.3% of adult Malaysians have knee pain and more than half of them have clinical evidence of OA.The prevalence ranges from 1.1% to 5.6% in the various ethnic groups in Malaysia.
Knee OA is characterized by degeneration of the articular cartilage which will eventually lead to the joint destruction. The underlying causes of OA are multifactorial with several predisposing factors such as mechanical trauma, obesity, genetic factors, inflammatory joint disease, previous joint infection, advancing age, metabolic factors, osteoporosis, and ligamentous laxity. Diagnosis of OA is made with clinical assessment and radiological investigation as an adjunct. Less than 50% of patients with radiological changes of osteoarthritis are symptomatic; therefore, treatment is based on symptoms rather than radiological changes.
The mainstay of treatments for early stage of knee osteoarthritis are analgesics, activity modification and physiotherapy. Over time, patients usually become refractory to the initial treatment regime, hence reconstructive surgery becomes the subsequent treatment modality. Analgesics widely used in knee OA patients only help in reducing inflammation and pain but they are ineffective in delaying disease progression. Currently, there are numerous ongoing efforts to develop new tissue engineering- based strategies for treatment of OA. Recent studies show that drugs such as glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate and intra-articular injections of hyaluronic acid not only favor pain relief, but also prevent the progression of the disease.
Post time: Nov-07-2022