Grant: Project Grant

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a substantial and growing health concern in Canada and around the world. It is the top cause of joint pain and related disability, limits participation in social and work activities, and leads to significant costs to the health care system and economy. Current treatments provide only limited symptom relief and do not stop or slow the progression of knee OA. This may be partly due to the current practice of studying new treatments in people who already have major joint damage. Studying new treatments at an earlier stage of knee OA, before significant joint damage has occurred, could lead to better results. Our team seeks to develop classification criteria for Early-Stage Symptomatic Knee Osteoarthritis (EsSKOA), to be able to identify individuals with knee OA at an earlier stage of disease and facilitate enrolling them in studies of new, disease-modifying, therapies. Classification criteria are a group of factors that can be used to accurately identify people with a particular condition. Our prior work has identified factors that should be considered and the conditions from which EsSKOA must be distinguished. This proposal seeks to complete the next steps of criteria development. We will: 1) Assess the identified factors and deterine how well they distinguish EsSKOA from other conditions and more advanced knee OA; 2) Interview people living with EsSKOA to understand their opinions and preferences regarding entering clinical trials of novel treatments. 3) Assemble the criteria set informed by the results from the prior steps, based on exercises of an international expert panel using standardized and widely accepted research methods. This will be followed by confirming the accuracy of the criteria. EsSKOA classification criteria will advance development of effective OA therapies by allowing people at an earlier disease stage to be enrolled into research studies, ultimately reducing the burden of knee OA and improving health outcomes.