Boston University School of Medicine researchers have identified a new imaging measure to help determine the severity of knee osteoarthritis.
Scientists utilized artificial intelligence and thousands of knee MRI scans to help develop the metric, dubbed “subchondral bone length.” The novel measure helps clinicians characterize the extent of overlying cartilage and bone flattening, experts explained May 11 in Arthritis & Rheumatology.
Corresponding author Vijaya B. Kolachalama, PhD, and colleagues found that changes in such bone length from baseline were associated with greater pain and disability.
“Our study identified SBL as a potentially useful measure of the bone morphology within the knee joint and showed that it varies with disease grade,” said Kolachalama, an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University, adding that the metric also has the potential to stage knee osteoarthritis in the future.
The degenerative joint disease affects more than half of adults over age 75 and is one of the leading causes of disability. But with no cure, providers currently rely on accurately identifying and classifying the condition, typically using X-ray or MR imaging, the authors noted. For their study, Kolachalama examined SBL’s relation to other markers such as radiographic join space narrowing, concurrent pain, disability and subsequent knee replacement.
They found that subchondral bone length values for knees with narrowing were consistently different from knees without, along with corresponding greater levels of pain and disability. Boston University researchers hope their new marker can be used to aid with early detection of osteoarthritis, with the potential to “significantly” improve care management.
Read more about their results in Arthritis & Rheumatology here.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.