Quantifying the Association of Radiographic Osteoarthritis in Knee or Hip Joints with Other Knees or Hips: The Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project

Abstract

We found a strong multivariable-adjusted association between KL grades in contralateral knees and hips, and a modest association with the other joint site (e.g., knees vs hips). These results suggest that diagnosis of ROA in 1 large joint may be a marker for risk of multijoint ROA, and warrant interventions to reduce the incidence or severity of ROA at these other joints.

Radiographic features of knee and hip osteoarthritis represent characteristics of an individual, in addition to severity of osteoarthritis

“…This also needs proof by longitudinal analyses. When OA severity progresses, the imbalance between joints will disappear due to the generalized character of disease, as is more commonly described for KL grade (26,30), making such an approach irrelevant.…”

“…a participant with KL grade II for the left knee and 0 for the right knee was defined as having radiographic OA). Subsequently, Pearson correlations for contralateral joints, and also for ipsilateral and diagonal joints, were determined within participants (26). As contralateral joints are evaluated for the hips on one radiograph and on separate radiographs for the knees, quantitative parameters for the contralateral hips are expected to be more similar than for the knees and more similar than for ipsilateral and diagonal comparisons.…”

Relationship of unilateral total hip arthroplasty (THA) to contralateral and ipsilateral knee joint degeneration – a longitudinal 3T MRI study from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI)

“…OA of one large joint is known to be associated with degenerative changes in other large joints within an individual [2], with the contralateral side of the same joint being at risk for OA and with the contralateral side of the other big joint also having an increased risk for OA [2, 3]. Individuals with a joint replacement are likely to have a subsequent replacement of the same joint on the contralateral side [3][29].…”

“…Joint degeneration of one large joint is associated with degenerative changes in other large joints [2]. Interestingly, patients with unilateral total hip arthroplasty (THA) have a higher rate of total knee replacements on the contralateral side rather than the ipsilateral side [3][4].…”

Osteoarthritis: New Perspectives

“…Sayre et al [7] recently demonstrated that having multiple joint sites affected by osteoarthritis increased the likelihood of employment reduction or loss in a sample from British Columbia, Canada. In participants in the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project, Sayre et al [8] also reported that the odds of osteoarthritis of the contralateral knee (or hip) were extremely high in the setting of osteoarthritis in one joint in that joint site, and that the odds of having osteoarthritis in the other joint site (knee, given hip or hip, given knee) were also modestly elevated.…”