Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials 2023

What is Osteoarthritis?

Osteoarthritis is a disease that causes the cartilage in joints to weaken and grow thinner slowly. Regarded by some professionals as a wear and tear condition, osteoarthritis affects the bone shape and density causes inflammation, and causes chronic pain from everyday movements.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, with 32.5 million Americans diagnosed with it. Osteoarthritis is more common as the person grows older, making people aged 50 or older much more susceptible to the condition. However, not everyone is diagnosed with it. Keeping up with your diet, exercise, and healthy routines will help fend off the threat of osteoarthritis. Younger people are not exempt from this condition either. Major injuries and trauma to the bones or joints can cause the risk of osteoarthritis, especially if it has to do with the ACL or the meniscus.

Why is Osteoarthritis Being Studied in Clinical Trials?

Once osteoarthritis has been diagnosed, there is no way to cure it. The only hope you have is to be able to regulate the symptoms and the pain that comes with it.

Osteoarthritis clinical trials aim to help patients maintain the same quality of life despite their condition, and most experts believe that this can be best achieved if osteoarthritis can be diagnosed early. Clinical trials focus on this, as there are a lot of genetic factors that come into increasing the risk of osteoarthritis. If professionals can be able to diagnose and identify this early enough, then patients have a higher chance of being prepared to fight against this condition.

How Do Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials Work?

Osteoarthritis clinical trials can happen only through the help of volunteer patients. These patients have to agree to a lot of medical procedures such as examining and collecting fat tissue, testing out new medicines, and in some cases, total surgeries.

What are Some Key Breakthrough Clinical Trials Involving Osteoarthritis?

2020: A study on Personalized OA Therapy highlighted recent advances in phenotype-specific treatment options and evaluated if they are applicable for personalized OA therapy. Researchers realized that targeting a single joint tissue may not be the best way to go about the treatment and that improved patient stratification partnered with cell-based therapies can provide specific therapy. This is significant because it assessed the recent treatments and their efficacy and found that although there is still no pharmacological treatment that can stop or reverse the progress of osteoarthritis, a few drugs like spifermin or BPs can still improve function and structure of the joints. Additionally, targeting TRPV1 or TrkA can relieve OA pain.

2021: In this study, a group of scientists was able to achieve adequate in a lab experiment involving protein pathways in mice. A knee injection was performed on several mice that allowed the pathway to halt cartilage degeneration, achieved through very advanced nanomedicine. This is significant because there is still no complete cure for osteoarthritis, but this might actually be the very first method to avert the cartilage generation caused by osteoarthritis safely.

Who are the Key Opinion Leaders on Osteoarthritis Clinical Trial Research?

Virginia Byers Kraus has been of the most important figures in osteoarthritis research in the past few decades. She focuses on joint damage and predicting the progression of the disease. She received her M.D. and her Ph.D. at Duke University.

Doctor Ali Guermazi is a radiologist from Boston University. He was a former director of OARG or the Osteoporosis and Arthritis Research Group stationed at the University of California. Dr. Guermazi specializes in musculoskeletal systems and the diagnosis of related diseases. His long research in the field has culminated in what has become the bedrock of structural diagnosis of osteoarthritis and identifying its risk factors.

Top Hospitals For Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials

According to Power’s data, NYU Langone Health in New York may be the best destination for Osteoarthritis clinical trials. Boasting 46,000 employees and 1,350available beds across all their hospitals, NYU Langone Health is currently able to host six current trials even though it had only started trials in 2019.

Check more hospitals offering Osteoarthritis clinical trials below.

Top Treatments for Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials

Cannabidiol is currently the most active trial according to Power’s data, with three (3) active trials. It aims to use dissolving tablets or ODTs to lessen knee pain and improve joint function. Its name came from the fact that it is produced from the cannabis plant but compared to its cousin, the tetrahydrocannabinol. It has barely had any changes to the mental state of the patient.

Check out more of the top treatments for osteoarthritis below.

Top Cities Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials

There are over a hundred clinical trials all over the united states. However, with Power’s data, New York seems to be the current have for Osteoarthritis clinical trials with 31 active ones.

Check out more active cities for osteoarthritis clinical trials below.

How many Osteoarthritis clinical trials are open to youth and/or seniors?

Power’s data makes it very apparent that trials for people above 18+ are very available, with 200 active clinical trials that are open for them to join in.

To see more of these clinical trial age groups, see the list below.

Most Recent Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials

Since August, there have been multiple clinical trials that began recruiting in different phases. However, the most recent one would be the Celtex-AdMCs, which began recruiting on September 25.

To see more of the recent Osteoarthritis clinical trials, check the list below.

Phase 3 Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials

There are several osteoarthritis clinical trials that are already in Phase 3, a very important stage where the trial is being compared to standard treatments and its safety is tested. The most recent ones that have begun recruiting are EmcytePureBMC and the Cannabidiol clinical trials.

To see more phase 3 osteoarthritis clinical trials, see the list below.

Which Phases are Most Popular For Osteoarthritis Clinical Trials?

Clinical trials take several years to complete and pass through many stages before a test subject is approved by the FDA or the local governing body on health. For osteoarthritis, the most popular and densely available clinical trials are in Phase 2, with 29 active clinical trials, 28 of which are unique.

To see more of the most popular osteoarthritis clinical trials, see the list below.

Resources:

Arthritis Foundation, Arthritis, https://www.arthritis.org/diseases/osteoarthritis, (09/27/22)

Arthritis Hub, https://arthritis.ca/researchers/get-involved-in-research/clinical-trials (09/27/22)

Penn Medicine, New Treatment Target Discovered that Halts Osteoarthritis-like Knee Cartilage Degeneration, https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/january/new-treatment-target-discovered-that-halts-osteoarthritis-like-knee-cartilage-degeneration (09/27/22)

Pubmed Central, Recent Advances in the Treatment of Osteoarthritis, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199286/ (09/27/22)

Duke University of Medicine, Virginia Byers Kraus,https://medicine.duke.edu/profile/virginia-byers-kraus (09/27/22)

Boston University, Ali Guermazi, https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/profile/ali-guermazi/ (09/27/22)