The main objective is to identify potential genetic markers, correlate with the inflammatory profile, imaging parameters and health status, and associate it with the clinical outcome for cartilage lesion and osteoarthritis. Several factors are implicated in the increased risk of osteoarthritis, such as age, overweight, trauma, surgical approach or congenital changes in the joint, gout, diabetes, and hormonal diseases.
Understanding the genetic variations present in people with cartilage damage and osteoarthritis, and how these patients respond to the proposed treatments, will bring benefits to the population, contribute to the advancement of national science and technology, and allow the choice of the most appropriate treatment, generating faster and more effective therapeutic effects. One of the tools that contribute to the development of personalized medicine are the Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs).
However, there are no studies correlating SNPs with clinical outcomes in patients with chondral lesions who are candidates for surgical interventions directed at these lesions. In addition to genetic markers, blood biomarkers are studied as prognostic means for identifying individuals at high risk of progression of knee osteoarthritis.
There is a gap in the literature about this type of association, which could be used for precision medicine. It is believed that with an experimental analysis with SNPs, the dosage of inflammatory cytokines and the correlation with imaging parameters, health status and clinical outcomes, it will be possible to propose personalized and more assertive treatments to athletes and patients.
That said, the patients to be analyzed are those with cartilage damage and knee osteoarthritis, unresponsive to nonoperative therapy (strengthening, weight loss if applicable and guidelines for activities of daily living) with follow-up for a minimum period of 6 months and indication of surgical treatment (debridement, autologous chondrocyte implantation, osteochondral allograft surgeries and partial or total knee arthroplasty) according to the PROMS scales.
The initial part of the project consists of collecting biological samples and gathering the data available at public databases, such as UK Biobank, to start the validation and correlations, this part is estimated to last 14 months. In the remaining 22 months, a study will be carried out on the development of correlation between the parameters. Our group’s data will be validated using UK Biobank data as a population comparison. Information will also be stratified according to patients’ ancestry data and other available relevant data such as sex, weight and age to allow for adequate comparison of groups.
