Biomarkers of prognosis and efficacy of treatment in OA

Excerpt

OA is a disease affecting the metabolism of all joint tissues leading to structural changes visible by imaging techniques. Unfortunately, features visible by imaging are in most cases irreversible and progressively moving towards worsening. One challenge for the next decade will be disease detection at the early stage when the first molecular/metabolic changes appear in joint tissues. Another challenge is to develop tools to assess the efficacy of OA treatment on the natural history of the disease. Therefore, there is an acute need for reliable biological markers that can facilitate earlier diagnosis of OA, predict the progression of the disease and evaluate the efficacy of therapeutic modalities. …