The presence of a higher level of sIL-6 and the varus alignment of the joint is associated with pain in early- and advanced-stage knee OA patients, respectively.

The presence of BML, SBC and SBA was associated with histological synovitis in end-stage knee OA patients.

The degradation and destruction of the femoral articular cartilage demonstrated a greater degree of deterioration than those of the tibial- and patellar- articular cartilage in patients with early stage knee OA.

No abstract

dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) analyses have been wellestablished. However, little is known about the expected SLS performance across the lifespan. Therefore the purpose of this study was to establish reference values for SLS in the healthy population. Methods: This is an observational cohort sub-study of the 1000 Norms Project which aims to generate a normative database of musculoskeletal and neurological profile in 1000 healthy individuals aged 3 to 100 years. A structured convenience sampling strategy was used to target individuals in the greater Sydney metropolitan area, Australia. Participants were stratified for age and gender. The SLS assessment was standardised for starting and finishing position, speed and anatomical landmarks. SLS was performed on the dominant limb with participants being barefoot and in shorts in front of a video camera. Markers were placed on the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS), midpoint of patella and midpoint between the ankle malleoli, which were anatomical landmarks for SLS analyses. Participants were instructed to perform five consecutive SLS. Each SLS was performed to approximately 50 of knee flexion. Fourth year physiotherapy honors students independently evaluated videos of SLS performance, initially for 10 participants to assess interrater reliability, followed by the remaining videos.. 536 SLS videos were available for analysis. We used Kinovea (0.8.15) freeware motion analysis software. Primary outcomes were clinical rating of dynamic knee control (knee medial to foot, knee over foot, knee lateral to foot) and the dynamic knee alignment by 2D analysis of peak frontal plane projection angle (FPPA). Intra-class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was used to determine interrater reliability. All outcome measures were analysed with gender and age stratification as in the following: (a) 3e9; (b) 10e19; (c) 20À29; (d) 30À39; (e) 40À49; (f) 50À59; (g) 60À69; (h) 70À79; (i) !80 years of age. Descriptive statistics were used to generate means and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of FPPA. Independent t-tests were performed to investigate differences in FPPA between males and females. Chi-square tests were performed to investigate differences in clinical assessment of SLS between genders. Linear regression was used to determine if FPPA changed with age. Results: Inter-rater reliability of assessors was r > 0.9 (95% CI ¼ 0.982 to 0.992 for FPPA, 0.875 to 0.984 for clinical rating). Reference values for peak FPPA across ages and gender are shown in Table 1. In ages above 40 years, participants who scored a medial SLS were predominantly females. Overall, females exhibited 10.2 of medial knee deviation, while males demonstrated 5.7 as measured by peak FPPA. For participants aged above 50, gender differences in peak FPPA were statistically significant in the following age groups: 60À69 (p ¼ 0.01) and ! 80 (p ¼ 0.001), with females demonstrating greater dynamic deviation medially. Age was a found to be a poor predictor of FPPA in SLS performance (R2 ¼ 0.053 for peak FPPA, R2 ¼ 0.0...