By
Osteoarthritis is a debilitating condition that affects at least 27 million people in the United States, and at least 12 percent of osteoarthritis cases stem from earlier injuries. Over-the-counter painkillers, such as anti-inflammatory drugs, help reduce pain but do not stop unrelenting cartilage destruction. Consequently, pain related to the condition only gets worse.
Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown in mice that they can inject nanoparticles into an injured joint and suppress inflammation immediately following an injury, reducing the destruction of cartilage.
The findings are reported online Sept. 26 in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“I see a lot of patients with osteoarthritis, and there’s really no treatment,” said senior author Christine Pham, MD, an associate professor of medicine. “We try to treat their symptoms, but even when we inject steroids into an arthritic joint, the drug only remains for up to a few hours, and then it’s cleared. These nanoparticles remain in the joint longer and help prevent cartilage degeneration.”
Frequently, an osteoarthritis patient has suffered an earlier injury — a torn meniscus or ACL injury in the knee, a fall, car accident or other trauma. The body naturally responds to such injuries in the joints with robust inflammation. Patients typically take drugs such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, and as pain gets worse, injections of steroids also can provide pain relief, but their effects are short-lived.
