Etiopathogenesis, Prevention, Modern Diagnostics and Conservative Treatment of Osteoarthritis

Dear Colleagues,

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common chronic joint disease causing pain, disability, and loss of function. It is currently the fourth most common cause of disability in women and the eighth in men, and shows a global over 100% trend of an increase in the number of years lived with disability over the last three decades. It is among the ten diseases generating the highest social costs. As many as 5% of the world's population requires constant treatment due to pain and related disorders of the musculoskeletal system caused by this disease. It causes debilitating multi-joint changes, causes pain that impairs motor skills, limits the ability to move freely and perform everyday as well as professional activities, and significantly worsens quality of life. OA's etiology includes mechanical and biological events that lead to an imbalance between the interconnected processes of the breakdown and formation of articular cartilage as well as the subchondral bone layer. This process can be initiated by many factors: genetic, developmental, metabolic, and traumatic. OA is manifested by morphological, biochemical, molecular, and biomechanical changes both within cells and the matrix, leading to softening, fibrosis, the formation of cartilage erosions and defects, the “densification” of subchondral bone tissue, and the formation of osteophytes as well as subchondral cysts. Does osteoarthritis have to be the incurable epidemic of our times? Does the complete replacement of the joint with an artificial one remain the primary form of treatment? What can and should be used in the treatment procedure before arthroplasty, or are there practical ways to prevent the need for surgery? Such questions remain open. Many scientific studies bring us closer to understanding osteoarthritis’s etiology, pathogenesis, and natural course. However, we still need to know more to assess joint failure risk, and it is not enough to prevent and treat the disease in its early stages. Further scientific research will allow us to understand the nature of the disease better and find more effective ways to treat it.

The Special Issue of the Journal of Clinical Medicine is devoted to OA etiology and pathogenesis as well as modern methods of diagnosis, conservative treatment, and joint preservation. We accept original research, clinical papers, and review papers based on the latest literature reports.

Dr. Wiesław Tomaszewski
Dr. Wojciech Glinkowski
Dr. Grzegorz Szczȩsny
Dr. Przemysław Paradowski
Guest Editors

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