Research Summary

PREVALENCE OF RADIOGRAPHIC OSTEOARTHRITIS – IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOUR POINT OF VIEW

Duncan, R. C., Hay, E. M., Saklatvala, J., and Croft, P. R. (2006). Rheumatology, 45(6): 757–760. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kei270.

Key Findings

%

MULTIPLE RADIOGRAPHIC VIEWS NECESSARY

3 radiographic views identified complete compartmental distributions in 98.7% of cases.

%

OA PREVALENT AMONG KNEE PAIN SUFFERERS

of adults with knee pain had radiographic osteoarthritis.

%

PF OA PREVALENT AMONG OA PATIENTS

of adults with radiographic OA had patellofemoral (PF) involvement.

A population-based study obtained different combinations of three radiographic views from 819 adults over age 50 with knee pain. The study demonstrated that the identification of radiographic osteoarthritis (OA) in patients depends on the number and type of radiographic views used. Additionally, compartmental distribution of OA is also influenced by the type and number of radiographic views obtained.

Based on complete data using all three radiographic views, OA was present in 68% of patients. Of these patients, 40% had combined tibiofemoral/patellofemoral, 4% had isolated tibiofemoral (TF), and 24% had isolated patellofemoral (PF).
The three radiographic views were weight-bearing posteroanterior (PA) semiflexed/metatarsophalangeal, supine skyline, and supine lateral. If only the PA view was used, only 56.7% of the confirmed OA cases were detected. Adding a skyline or lateral view increased the number of detected OA cases to 87.0% while also changing the identified compartmental distribution. Adding both skyline and lateral views increased the detection of OA to 98.7% and resulted in the detection of more cases of isolated PF OA.

RELEVANCE TO LEVITATION

The compartmental distribution of OA within the study population suggests that multicompartmental and PF are the most common types of OA within the general population. The relatively low prevalence of isolated TF is relevant to the prescription of knee braces, since the majority of knee braces for OA only effectively treat unicompartmental TF. Levitation, on the other hand, may be able to treat the remaining patients with multicompartmental or PF. Due to its tri-compartment offloading technology, Levitation is capable of addressing knee pain originating from multiple compartments, including the PF compartment1– Budarick, A.R. et al. (2020). J. Biomech. Eng. 142(1)
– McGibbon, C.A. et al. 2020. Front. Bioeng. Biotech. doi:10.3389/fbioe.2020.604860
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Multiple Forces Reduced

Each TCO brace model significantly reduced PF, TF, PC ligament, PT and QT forces during a deep knee bend test.

Reduced Joint Load

Each TCO brace model significantly reduced knee joint loads by at least 32% when compared to the non-braced condition.

Replicates & Extends Previous Research

Results corroborate the knee joint offloading capabilities of a TCO, as demonstrated in a previous study (Budarick et al. 2020).

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