OAI Study Overview
The NIH Osteoarthritis Initiative
Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, is a joint disease
marked by the gradual loss of cartilage that cushions and
protects the bones, abnormal bone growth around the joint, and other
joint changes that cause pain and disability.
An estimated 27 million Americans age 25 and older have
osteoarthritis, and the knee is among the most commonly
affected joints.
There are currently no treatments - other than surgical joint
replacement - that change the course of the disease, and clinical
trials for prospective therapies are long, difficult and expensive.
Current methods of evaluating osteoarthritis disease progression,
including X-rays and blood tests, are not accurate enough to be used
in clinical trials of potential treatments.
Scientists, health care providers and drug companies need
biochemical and imaging markers of how osteoarthritis progresses to
better diagnose, monitor and treat the disease.
In response to this need, the NIH Osteoarthritis Initiative
was established.
The Osteoarthritis Initiative is a multi-center study of knee
osteoarthritis that involves repeated observation of a set of
subjects over time.
This public-private partnership is a collaboration between the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and pharmaceutical companies.
It consists of four clinical centers, a data coordinating center, and a
steering committee that advises on the scientific aspects of the study.
The Osteoarthritis Initiative is a premier example of how industry,
government and the academic sector can work together to
enhance and extend biomedical research in ways not possible by
one individual entity.
Nearly 5,000 individuals are being tracked over time with the goals of
understanding the natural progression of knee osteoarthritis -
from onset to total joint replacement - and identifying
biomarkers and risk factors associated with it.
A public repository of osteoarthritis clinical data,
radiological information and biological specimens
has been developed.
Making this information available to researchers worldwide is
expediting the pace of scientific advancements in these areas.
Scientists throughout the world are using this public resource to test
biochemical and imaging markers of disease progression, to further
the development of osteoarthritis drugs, and to
improve public health.
For more information, please visit our Web site, www.niams.nih.gov.
Official OAI study overview by the National Institutes of Health