This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
RA patients’ bone changes assessed with HR-pQCT included bone markers
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Changes in rheumatoid arthritis patients’ bone structure assessed by high-resolution peripheral quantitiative computed tomography also showed altered biomarkers of bone resorption and bone formation, according to recent study results.
Researchers studied 40 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA; mean age, 55.4 years; 75% women; mean disease duration, 4.6 years) who underwent high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT) analysis of the dominant affected hand’s second and third metacarpophalangeal joints at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Erosion counts, osteophyte counts and scores were recorded. Also assessed were serum markers of bone resorption, bone formation and calcium homeostasis. Partial correlation adjusting for demographic and disease-specific parameters was used to correlate bone biomarkers to imaging data. Mixed linear model regression analyzed imaging data.
Tartrate resistant acid phosphatase 5b levels correlated significantly with bone erosions, according to partial correlation analysis at baseline and 1 year, while bone alkaline phosphatase (BAP) levels correlated with osteophytes. Disease duration was the key determinant of catabolic bone changes, according to the mixed linear model with erosions as the dependent variable (P<.001).
Anabolic changes in the number of osteophytes of the periarticular bone, however, were determined primarily by BAP (P=.001) and patients’ age (P=.018), not disease duration (P=.762).
“These data show that changes in BAP correlate with the anabolic bone changes in RA joints and that disease duration and age also impact the bone microstructure,” the researchers concluded. “By using the HR-pQCT, it is not only possible to simultaneously depict catabolic and anabolic changes in the joint, but also to correlate these bone changes to serum markers of bone turnover even in rather small patient cohorts. These data are particularly interesting for small proof-of-concept studies aiming to combine strong anti-inflammatory/anti-erosive drug therapy with interventions that foster bone formation and repair.”
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts