Epidemiology and Burden of Osteoarthritis

By A. Litwic, M. Edwards, Elaine Dennison, Chris Cooper. British Medical Bulletin, 2013

1,258 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease involving the cartilage and many of its surrounding tissues. Disease progression is usually slow but can ultimately lead to joint failure with pain and disability. OA of the hips and knees tends to cause the greatest burden to the population as pain and stiffness in these large weight bearing joints often leads to significant disability requiring surgical intervention. Sources of data The article reviews the existing data on epidemiology of osteoarthritis and the burden of the disease. Areas of agreement Symptoms and radiographic changes are poorly correlated in OA. Established risk factors include obesity, local trauma and occupation. The burden of OA is physical, psychological and socioeconomic. Areas of controversy Available data does not allow definite conclusion regarding the roles of nutrition, smoking and sarcopenia as risk factors for developing OA Growing points Areas timely for developing research: Further research is required to fully understand how OA affects an individual physically and psychologically, and to determine their healthcare need.

Subfields: Psychiatry and Mental health, Rheumatology, Surgery

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/61006f13962fe36b283c48391d8df47661082d5d

Citations in the corpus

• Global, regional prevalence, incidence and risk factors of knee osteoarthritis in population-based studies (2020, neutral): “On the contrary, the patients with severe radiographic changes may not have any symptoms [8].”