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The associations between radiographic hand osteoarthritis definitions and hand pain: data from the osteoarthritis initiative

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Abstract

The goal of our study was to evaluate the associations between various definitions of radiographic hand osteoarthritis (OA) and self-reported hand pain. We conducted a cross-sectional study with 3604 participants from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI). Posteroanterior radiographs of the dominant hand were read using a modified Kellgren–Lawrence (KL) scale. For our primary analysis, hand OA at person level was defined as two or more finger joints with KL grade 2 or higher. In addition, for the purpose of exploratory analyses, we explored more conservative definitions of hand OA as well as different sum scores and digit- and row-based scores. The majority of definitions of radiographic hand OA were statistically significantly associated with self-reported hand pain. In our main analysis, persons with two or more finger joints with KL grade > 2 were approximately two times more likely to self-report hand pain than persons without radiographic hand OA. Increasing KL grades and increasing number of joints affected lead to stronger associations. Almost all definitions of hand OA were related to pain. Individuals with more severely affected joints or with higher number of affected joints are more likely to report hand pain than their peers. Specifically, individuals with hand joints with KL 3 or 4 have the greatest likelihood of hand pain.

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Funding

These analyses were financially supported by a grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01-AR066378. The OAI is a public–private partnership comprised of five contracts (N01-AR-2-2258; N01-AR-2-2259; N01-AR-2-2260; N01-AR-2-2261; N01-AR-2-2262) funded by the National Institutes of Health, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, and conducted by the OAI Study Investigators. Private funding partners include Merck Research Laboratories; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline; and Pfizer, Inc. Private sector funding for the OAI is managed by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. This manuscript was prepared using an OAI public use data set and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the OAI investigators, the NIH, or the private funding partners.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Lena F. Schaefer, Stacy E. Smith & Jeffrey Duryea

  2. Division of Rheumatology, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, USA

    Timothy E. McAlindon & Jeffrey B. Driban

  3. Center for Primary Care, Prevention, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, USA

    Charles B. Eaton & Mary B. Roberts

  4. Department of Rheumatology, Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway

    Ida K. Haugen

Authors
  1. Lena F. Schaefer
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  2. Timothy E. McAlindon
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  3. Charles B. Eaton
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  4. Mary B. Roberts
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  5. Ida K. Haugen
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  6. Stacy E. Smith
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  7. Jeffrey Duryea
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  8. Jeffrey B. Driban
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Contributions

Study conception and design—TEM, JBD, CBE. Acquisition of data—JD, LFS, SES, IKH. Analysis and interpretation of data—JD, LFS, SES, TEM, JBD, CBE, MBR, IKH. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content—JD, LFS, SES, TEM, JBD, CBE, MBR, IKH. Final approval of the version of the article to be published—JD, LFS, SES, TEM, JBD, CBE, MBR, IKH. LFS (lenafranziskaschaefer@yahoo.com) takes responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lena F. Schaefer.

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval

Institutional review boards at the OAI clinical sites and the coordinating center (University of California, San Francisco) approved the OAI study (University of California Internal Review Board Approval Number 10–00532, Approval Date: 2/24/2017 Expiration Date: 2/23/2018).

Informed consent

All participants provided informed consent.

Conflict of interest

Dr. Haugen reports personal fees from Abbvie outside the submitted work. Dr. McAlindon reports personal fees from Sanofi Aventis, Samumed, Regeneron, Federal Trade Commission, Seikagaku Corp, Astellas, Pfizer and Tufts Medical Center Physicians Organization outside the submitted work and fees to his institution from Sanofi, Samumed, Allergan and Abbvie outside the submitted work. He also reports a patent: #7,251,609: Online Clinical Trial Methodology outside the submitted work. All other authors declare that they have no conflicting interests.

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Schaefer, L.F., McAlindon, T.E., Eaton, C.B. et al. The associations between radiographic hand osteoarthritis definitions and hand pain: data from the osteoarthritis initiative. Rheumatol Int 38, 403–413 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-017-3913-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-017-3913-0

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