Plain radiography as an outcome measure in clinical trials involving patients with knee osteoarthritis

Citation
Sa. Mazzuca et Kd. Brandt, Plain radiography as an outcome measure in clinical trials involving patients with knee osteoarthritis, RHEUM DIS C, 25(2), 1999, pp. 467
Citations number
36
Categorie Soggetti
Rheumatology
Journal title
RHEUMATIC DISEASE CLINICS OF NORTH AMERICA
ISSN journal
0889857X → ACNP
Volume
25
Issue
2
Year of publication
1999
Database
ISI
SICI code
0889-857X(199905)25:2<467:PRAAOM>2.0.ZU;2-A
Abstract
The identification of pharmacologic agents that inhibit matrix metalloprote inase activity and may serve as effective disease-modifying osteoarthritis drugs (DMOADs) in humans has led to interest in the ability of plain radiog raphic methods to detect early cartilage damage and assess progressive cart ilage changes of knee osteoarthritis (OA). Conventional knee radiography la cks sufficient standardization of key elements of the radioanatomic positio ning of the knee to avoid significant, probably insurmountable, error varia tion in the measurement of tibiofemoral joint space width (JSW), the surrog ate for the thickness of articular cartilage in radiographic images. Recent ly, several protocols for the use of fluoroscopy to standardize the radioan atomic position of the knee in a plain radiograph have been shown to afford notably more precise measurement of medial tibiofemoral JSW than can be de rived from unstandardized, conventional techniques. A field test of one of these protocols suggests that DMOAD trials with respect to sample size or d uration of treatment necessary to detect true OA progression and demonstrat e a drug effect may be more feasible.