Periarticular Bone Changes in Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) can be considered an organ failure with pathological aspects in cartilage, bone, ligaments, and synovium. Altogether, these tissue changes can result in pain and immobilization—a failure of the joint. It is well regarded that OA is a complex multifactorial disease with many risk factors and different etiological pathways that all lead to an apparently similar end stage. Bony changes are clearly observed in advanced OA. However, little understanding exists on the role of these changes, whether they are a consequence of cartilage damage or precede this damage and maybe play an important role in the etiological process. Even more important is the issue of pain. Radiological scores of OA do not match well with pain and mobility scores, which questions the value of these scoring systems. It seems that we do not assess the most relevant parameters. Evaluation of conventional and new radiographic parameters is still an extensive part of the OA research field. We may have overlooked certain (subtle) parameters that can be extracted from x-rays, but other imaging modalities such as MRI, CT, or SPECT might better represent OA in a clinically relevant manner.

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