Searching for a Cure for OA: RheumMadness 2022 Dog OA Scouting Report

1. Adopt a one-medicine approach: Collaboration with veterinary researchers can provide tissue samples from early-stage OA and opportunities to evaluate new therapies in dog models of OA. This approach may help develop our understanding and treatment of dog OA, which may further lead to discoveries in human OA.
2. Follow veterinary randomized controlled trials (V-RCTs): In companion dogs with OA and chronic pain, V-RCTs may reliably predict treatment efficacy in humans.^3,4 A database is currently being developed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, as well as national repositories of dog OA tissue samples and national retrieval banks for implants along with V-RCT guidelines.

Implications

Technological advancements in V-RCTs for dog OA include telemetric accelerometry, the ability to monitor dog locomotion and quantitative sensory testing, the measurement of pain in dogs using temperature or vibration.⁵ These instruments have the potential to measure improvement in dogs’ functional status after experimental therapies for OA, including orthopedic devices and new medications. It’s easy to imagine that data from these types of trials may be used to predict safety and efficacy of new therapies in humans.

Interestingly, dog OA trials have shown that allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells harvested from adipose tissue can be combined with hyaluronan and injected into the elbows and hips of dogs, resulting in reduced lameness, as well as regeneration of cartilage at these sites.⁶ Research on the use of stem cells for cartilage regeneration in humans, which is in its early stages, may benefit from the knowledge gained through stem cell trials performed in dogs.

Could a collaboration between veterinary and human researchers accelerate research on stem cell therapies in human OA? This seems like a winning strategy.

Chances in the Tournament

We predict Dog OA will be top dog for the Animal House Region, but this team will face some stiff competition moving forward in the tournament.

A condition with such immense global disease burden and disability deserves high-quality basic and clinical research studies to further understand the pathogenesis of OA. We hope the one-medicine approach and V-RCTs may lead to development of novel therapeutic options and potentially a cure for OA. It appears one way to accomplish this goal is a joint effort between humans and their furry loyal companions.

Jesse Reisner, DO, is a first-year rheumatology fellow in the Ohio State University Rheumatology Fellowship Program, Columbus, Ohio.