The research provided by the Oregon State University provided the first complete cellular-level look at what goes on in joints that are affected by osteoarthritis, which is considered as a costly and debilitating condition that affects almost one-quarter of adults in America.
The study was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, and it gave an insight into how factors like drugs, diet, and exercise can affect the joint's cells, which is important because cells do the work of maintaining, developing and repairing the tissue.
Arthritis treatment
The research done by the OSU College of Engineering's Brian Bay and the scientists from the Royal Veterinary College in London and University College London created a sophisticated scanning technique to view joints of mice that have arthritis and joints of healthy mice.
Brian Bay said that the techniques for quantifying changes in arthritic joints had been constrained by a lot of factors. Restrictions on the length of scanning time and the sample size are two of them, and the level of radiation used in some of the techniques ultimately damages or destroys the samples that are being scanned. The nanoscale resolution of intact, loaded joints had been considered unattainable.
Brain Bay and scientists from 3Dmagination Ltd, the University of Manchester, Edinburgh Napier University, the Diamond Light Source, and the Research Complex at Harwell created a way to conduct nanoscale by capturing the images of bones and whole joints under precisely controlled loads.
The scientists enhanced the resolution without compromising the study's field of view, decrease the total radiation exposure to preserve the tissue mechanics, and to prevent movement during the scanning.
Brian Bay stated that with a low-dose of pink-beam synchrotron X-ray tomography and mechanical loading with nanometric precision, scientists could measure the structural organization simultaneously and functional response of the tissues. That means that scientists can look at the joints of the patient from the tissue layers down to the cellular level with a large field of view and high resolution without having to cut out the samples.
He also stated that the two features of the study make it helpful in advancing the study of osteoarthritis. By using intact joints and bones, all of the functional aspects of the complex tissue that is layering are preserved. The small size of the mouse bones leads to imaging that is seen on the scale of the cells that maintain, develop, and repair the tissues.
The effect of osteoarthritis on health
Osteoarthritis is the degeneration of joints, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it affects more than 50 million American adults. Around 18% of men and 25% of women suffer from osteoarthritis.
As the senior population in America increases, the prevalence of arthritis will likely rise in the coming years. The CDC estimates that by 2040 there will be 78 million arthritis patients, more than one-quarter of the projected total adult population, two-thirds of those with arthritis are expected to be women. By 2040, 34 million adults in America will have limits in the activities that they do because of arthritis.
Brian Bay said that osteoarthritis will affect most of the adults during their lifetime to the point where a hip joint or a knee joint needs replacement with a difficult and costly surgery after years of pain and disability. This new treatment that OSU has to develop can prevent any severe arthritis from forming that could save millions of adults from having to go through the difficulties of arthritis.
