For several years the medical industry has been searching for clues on how the dreadful disease of osteoarthritis (OA) develops in men and women, and leads to unbearable pain, medical experts say.Pain on the joints, if left untreated, will become more painful, causing a person to undergo surgery such as the controversial hip replacement of DePuy Orthopeadics, a unit of Johnson & Johnson.Post-surgery complications have left thousands of recipient wishing they should have not gone through the procedure if not because of osteoarthritis after it has worsened their conditions. The United Stated Food and Drug Administration (FDA) closely monitors the loophole in artificial hips and imposing new restrictions on metal implants.
Finally, a group of researchers at Rush University Medical Center, in collaboration with their counterparts from Northwestern University, has identified the cause; it is a molecular mechanism central to the development of OA. The findings could have a major implication for future treatment of this often-debilitating condition.
According to the lead author, Dr. Ann-Marie Malfait, an associate professor of biochemistry and of internal medicine at Rush University, scientist have focused on trying to understand how cartilage and joints degenerate in osteoarthritis. But no one knows why it hurts.
Joint pain linked to osteoarthritis has unique clinical features that provide insight into the mechanisms that cause it. First, joint pain has a strong mechanical component: It is typically triggered by special activities such as climbing stairs that hurts the knee and is relieved by rest. As structural joint disease advances, pain may occur even the person is still resting.
Heightened sensitivity to pain, including mechanical allodynia which is a pain caused by a stimulus that does not normally triggers pain, such as lightly brushing the skin with a cotton swab, and reduced pain-pressure thresholds, are features of OA.
Malfait and her colleagues took a novel approach to unraveling the molecular pathways of OA pain in a surgical mouse model exhibiting the slow, chronically progressive development of the disease. The study was conducted longitudinally, that is, the researchers were able to monitor development of both pain behaviors and molecular events in the sensory neurons of the knee and correlate the data from repeated observations over an extended period.
"This method essentially provides us with a longitudinal 'read-out' of the development of OA pain and pain-related behaviors, in a mouse model" Malfait says.
Thousands of patients are now in pain from the defective implants and some had undergone blood tests amid fears that they are being poisoned by their replacement metal hips. Small particles from the metal are believed to be damaging flesh and causing immense pain. Other symptoms could include breathing problems, stroke, sight and hearing loss -- and even cancer.
With this new discovery of the cause behind the osteoarthritis pain, it will definitely lower the number of patients undergoing hip replacement. If only this could have been detected earlier, thousands of osteoarthritis-related hip replacement recipients could have been spared from defective implants,against which in 2010 Johnson & Johnson voluntary conducted a recall after an alarming thousands of patients complained about the DePuy ASR hip problems.
URL REFERENCES:
dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2004218/Thousands-hip-op-patients-fear-poisoned-metal-prosthetics.html#ixzz2IqZt6MLC
medindia.net/news/researchers-discover-culprit-behind-osteoarthritis-pain-112101-1.htm#ixzz2Ipu8285g
Finally, a group of researchers at Rush University Medical Center, in collaboration with their counterparts from Northwestern University, has identified the cause; it is a molecular mechanism central to the development of OA. The findings could have a major implication for future treatment of this often-debilitating condition.
According to the lead author, Dr. Ann-Marie Malfait, an associate professor of biochemistry and of internal medicine at Rush University, scientist have focused on trying to understand how cartilage and joints degenerate in osteoarthritis. But no one knows why it hurts.
Joint pain linked to osteoarthritis has unique clinical features that provide insight into the mechanisms that cause it. First, joint pain has a strong mechanical component: It is typically triggered by special activities such as climbing stairs that hurts the knee and is relieved by rest. As structural joint disease advances, pain may occur even the person is still resting.
Heightened sensitivity to pain, including mechanical allodynia which is a pain caused by a stimulus that does not normally triggers pain, such as lightly brushing the skin with a cotton swab, and reduced pain-pressure thresholds, are features of OA.
Malfait and her colleagues took a novel approach to unraveling the molecular pathways of OA pain in a surgical mouse model exhibiting the slow, chronically progressive development of the disease. The study was conducted longitudinally, that is, the researchers were able to monitor development of both pain behaviors and molecular events in the sensory neurons of the knee and correlate the data from repeated observations over an extended period.
"This method essentially provides us with a longitudinal 'read-out' of the development of OA pain and pain-related behaviors, in a mouse model" Malfait says.
Thousands of patients are now in pain from the defective implants and some had undergone blood tests amid fears that they are being poisoned by their replacement metal hips. Small particles from the metal are believed to be damaging flesh and causing immense pain. Other symptoms could include breathing problems, stroke, sight and hearing loss -- and even cancer.
With this new discovery of the cause behind the osteoarthritis pain, it will definitely lower the number of patients undergoing hip replacement. If only this could have been detected earlier, thousands of osteoarthritis-related hip replacement recipients could have been spared from defective implants,against which in 2010 Johnson & Johnson voluntary conducted a recall after an alarming thousands of patients complained about the DePuy ASR hip problems.
URL REFERENCES:
dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2004218/Thousands-hip-op-patients-fear-poisoned-metal-prosthetics.html#ixzz2IqZt6MLC
medindia.net/news/researchers-discover-culprit-behind-osteoarthritis-pain-112101-1.htm#ixzz2Ipu8285g