Hand joints without radiographic osteoarthritis maintain their joint space width over 4 years despite what’s happening elsewhere in the hand
Authors' conclusion
Hand OA is not a systemic disease of cartilage.
Study context
- Population
- Osteoarthritis Initiative participants with baseline and 48-month hand radiographs; distal and proximal IP joints
- Participants
- 3,368 participants
- Exposure
- Radiographically normal joints in hands with incident or prevalent hand OA vs hands without OA
- No hand OAn = 1,054reference
- Incident hand OAn = 102
- Prevalent hand OAn = 2,212
- Outcome
- JSW loss in radiographically normal (KL 0) joints
- Follow-up
- 4 years
Methodological detailslongitudinal, semi-automated joint space width (JSW) measurement, unpooled effect sizes
- Longitudinal
- Semi-automated JSW measurement
- Unpooled effect sizes
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
JSW loss in radiographically normal joints
Small differences in JSW loss, unlikely to be clinically important, between no hand OA and incident or prevalent hand OA (effect size range)
−0.01-0.24
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
JSW loss dichotomized on meaningful change and other secondary analyses
- Findings robust
Original publication
Hand joints without radiographic osteoarthritis maintain their joint space width over 4 years despite what’s happening elsewhere in the hand. Rheumatology (Oxford). Published 11 September 2023. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →