The Problem
Osteoarthritis in the knee
Despite osteoarthritis (OA) being the most common type of arthritis and the fastest-growing cause of disability worldwide, the treatment area has seen minimal progression in the last 20 years. With so little known about exactly what causes knee OA, a permanent cure has yet to be discovered.
What is Knee Osteoarthritis?
Knee Osteoarthritis (OA) is a long-term condition where shock-absorbing cartilage is worn away causing bones to rub together and the joint to become stiff, swollen and painful. The knee joint worsens over time resulting in synovial pain and disability.
No therapies have been able to satisfactorily halt or delay OA progression or provide effective, long-lasting symptomatic relief.
Treatments to date have focused on pain relief and managing the symptoms of the condition — meaning that the options available to the one third of over 65s currently living with OA worldwide have been limited to:
- Exercise
- Weight loss
- Pain relief medication
- Viscousupplement (hyaluronic acid) Injections
- Braces
- Physio
When these therapies fail, joint replacement surgery (with an artificial prosthesis) is often the only option to improve pain sensation and patient quality of life.
Of 1,504 respondents surveyed in the UK in March 2024:
43%
would pay for non-surgical treatments
61%
are concerned about side effects of surgery e.g. pain and discomfort
58%
are anxious about surgery
Synovitis (synovial pain)
- Is a common symptom experienced by patients with knee OA.
- It's caused by the inflammation of synovial tissue located inside the knee joint, and is strongly linked with level of pain experienced by patients with knee OA.
What is synovial tissue and where can it be found?
- Synovial tissue lines the inside of the synovial joint capsule.
In the knee, the synovial tissue seals the synovial cavity, maintains the synovial fluid and helps with chondrocyte nutrition (cells responsible for cartilage formation) and subchondral bone (bone that sits underneath cartilage).
There is strong evidence that synovial pain is associated with further worsening of OA.
The link between knee OA and synovial pain
Synovial pain is known to play an important role in OA development.
In addition to its relationship with knee pain, synovial pain is also strongly associated with a rapid increase of cartilage loss in OA joints and the start of cartilage loss in joints without OA.
What if there was a better way?
With joint replacement surgery having previously been the only option for those with late-stage knee OA, Arthrosamid® is redefining treatment for patients living with knee pain.
