New Therapeutics for Osteoarthritis May Be in Sight

Concluding Remarks

OA continues to be a challenging disease for rheumatologists and their patients. The direct impact of OA on a patient’s quality of life remains a significant problem, and reduced physical activity may increase the risk of conditions exacerbated by a sedentary lifestyle, such as cardiovascular disease.^34,35

Without medical treatments to simultaneously mitigate their symptoms and prevent disease progression, OA patients often conclude, “Well, I guess there is nothing that can be done … until I’m ready for a new joint.” Although this is not entirely true, and many therapies, including pain modulators, physical therapy and injections, reduce suffering, transformative changes to the therapeutic landscape for OA patients have yet to be realized.

Our understanding of the pathogenesis of OA has increased over the past decade, and as we appreciate how OA affects the entire joint organ, we can begin to drill down on targets and pathways that may slow down or reverse the disease. Whether the promise of catabolic enzyme inhibitors, biolubricants or stem cell technologies will ever be realized in OA patients remains uncertain. However, I can tell my OA patients with confidence, “We’re still working on it.”

Antonios Aliprantis, MD, PhD, is director of the Brigham and Women’s Osteoarthritis Center, associate immunologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor for Harvard Medical School, Boston.

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