Osteoarthritis (OA) is estimated to affect almost 27 million Americans. Second only to heart disease as a cause of work disability, OA affects people of all ages, although the majority of those experiencing OA are adults. The prevalence of OA has increased and is likely to continue increasing as the “baby boom” generation ages. The current market for OA treatments, aside from a slight decline in the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and a slight but surprising upswing in the use of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors, has remained relatively stable over the past few years. In the past year, use of intra-articular steroids has dropped slightly, while the use of hyaluronic acid (HA) products has remained the same.
With a goal of symptom relief and improvement in function, many clinicians believe that the HA product likely to yield the best results may be one that most closely resembles endogenous human HA. With this hypothesis in mind, a group of clinicians in the fields of orthopedics, rheumatology, and physical medicine/rehabilitation met in New York City in November 2008. Their purpose was to review the beneficial properties of endogenous HA, evaluate the available exogenous HA products to determine how they compare in their resemblance to endogenous HA, and agree on an umbrella term that would best encompass the features of the ideal HA product for both clinicians and patients.
A monograph was created and published as a result of this meeting.
It can be downloaded here.
It was published by the manufacturers of Euflexxa (keep this in mind when you read it) but it contains a great deal of valuable information that I believe will be helpful for patients.
I’ll search the web for the good information so you don’t have to.
Thanks,
JTM, MD