Another indication of the urgent need for improved treatments and strategies for prevention of osteoarthritis came out this week.
Conventionally, osteoarthritis (OA) has been viewed as a highly dominant but generally mild condition when compared to rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and some may believe that it is part of a normal aging process requiring acceptance, not treatment. Also, after treatment, OA was associated with a higher burden of disease than RA, indicating that treatment leads to significant improvements in patients with RA compared with those with OA.
However, a new study in Arthritis & Rheumatology indicates that the disease burden in OA is similar to RA at initial rheumatology visit and significantly greater 6-months later, according to scores on an MDHAQ (multidimensional HAQ), including RAPID3 (routine assessment of patient index data), an index within the MDHAQ. The study included 149 patients with OA and 203 patients with RA who completed a health assessment questionnaire at multiple visits.
“This new information may have important implications for public health and control of healthcare costs. Osteoarthritis is one of the three most common health conditions in the US population, at least 20 times more common than rheumatoid arthritis, and has been estimated to involve costs of 1 percent of the gross domestic product,” said senior author Dr. Theodore Pincus, of Rush University Medical Center, in Chicago. “Our results appear to indicate an urgent need for improved treatments and strategies for prevention of osteoarthritis.”
Source:
Disease Burden in Osteoarthritis Is Similar to Rheumatoid Arthritis
Disease burden in osteoarthritis (OA) is similar to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) at initial rheumatology visit and significantly greater 6-months later
