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The Nature of In Vivo Mechanical Signals That Influence Cartilage Health and Progression to Knee Osteoarthritis

  • Osteoarthritis (MB Goldring, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Knee osteoarthritis is a disease that can be initiated along multiple pathways that ultimately leads to pain, loss of function and breakdown of the articular cartilage. While the various pathways have biological and structural elements, the mechanical pathways play a critical role in the development of the disease. The forces and motions occurring during ambulation provide mechanical signals sensed at the scale of the cell that are critical to healthy joint homeostasis. As such, ambulatory changes associated with aging, obesity, or joint injury that occur prior to the development of symptoms of OA can ultimately lead to clinical OA. Conversely, inter-scale signaling (e.g., pain) generated by biological changes in the early stages of OA can produce adaptive ambulatory changes that can modify the rate of OA progression. Thus, the nature of the physical and clinical response to the mechanical signals that occur during ambulation is critical to understanding the etiology of osteoarthritis.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding support of the NIH AR049793, the Swiss National Science Foundation PBELB3-125438, Veterans Administration RR&D A4860R, and the Arthritis Foundation.

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Conflict of Interest

Thomas P. Andriacchi and Julien Favre declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Durand 227, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Thomas P. Andriacchi & Julien Favre

  2. Orthopaedic Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Thomas P. Andriacchi

  3. Joint Preservation Center, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Thomas P. Andriacchi

  4. Muskuloskeletal Medicine, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Julien Favre

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  1. Thomas P. Andriacchi
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  2. Julien Favre
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Correspondence to Thomas P. Andriacchi.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Osteoarthritis

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Andriacchi, T.P., Favre, J. The Nature of In Vivo Mechanical Signals That Influence Cartilage Health and Progression to Knee Osteoarthritis. Curr Rheumatol Rep 16, 463 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11926-014-0463-2

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