Osteoarthritis expected to impact nearly 1 billion people by 2050
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Key takeaways:
- Approximately 595 million people worldwide were living with osteoarthritis in 2020, researchers estimated.
- The prevalences of hand, hip, and knee osteoarthritis are all expected to rise in the next quarter-century.
Nearly 1 billion people will be burdened with osteoarthritis by 2050, according to data published in The Lancet Rheumatology.
“With the key drivers of people living longer and a growing world population, we need to anticipate stress on health systems in most countries,” Jaimie Steinmetz, PhD, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, in Seattle, said in a press release. “There is no effective cure for osteoarthritis right now, so it’s critical that we focus on strategies of prevention, early intervention, and making expensive, effective treatments like joint replacements more affordable in low- and middle-income countries.”
To investigate the global disease burden of OA between the years 1990 and 2020 — as well as projected impacts to 2050 — Steinmetz and her colleagues with the Global Disease Burden (GDB) 2021 Osteoarthritis Collaborators searched PubMed for studies on the disease published between 1980 and 2019. The researchers defined hip and knee OA as disease that has been “radiographically confirmed” to have a Kellgren-Lawrence grade between 2 and 4, they wrote.
Steinmetz and colleagues used data from cross-sectional, population-based surveys from 26 countries for knee OA, 23 countries for hip OA and 42 countries for hand OA. The researchers used population estimates to forecast the global OA disease burden, with socioeconomic factors as predictors.
The researchers reported that about 595 million patients were living with OA in 2020 (95% uncertainty interval; 535-656), representing an increase in cases of about 132.2% (95% UI; 130.3-134.1) since 1990. The total number of cases is expected to rise to about 1 billion by 2050, according to the researchers. Specifically, cases of knee OA are expected to increase 74.9% (95% UI; 59.4-89.9), while hand OA cases are expected to rise 48.6% (95% UI; 35.9-67.1) and cases of hip OA are expected to rise 78.6% (95% UI; 57.7-105.3). “Other” types of OA are expected to increase by 95.1% (95% UI; 68.1-135), the researchers wrote.
According to the press release, aging, population growth, and obesity were the three “main factors” that contributed to the rapid increase in OA cases over the past three decades. In 2020, obesity was responsible for approximately 20% of disability related to OA, compared with 16% in 1990, the release added.
“Health care systems and governments have an opportunity to engage and participate in identifying vulnerable populations, addressing drivers of obesity and developing management strategies to prevent or slow down the progression of osteoarthritis,” Liane Ong, PhD, lead research scientist at the IHME, said in the release.
“The role that physical inactivity plays in obesity and pain associated with osteoarthritis can have opposite and unintended negative cycles,” she added. “For example, being physically active can prevent injuries earlier in life and can even be beneficial for someone with joint pain. It’s counterintuitive, but having joint pain doesn’t mean we should remain sedentary.”
Reference:
New study reveals the most common form of arthritis, osteoarthritis, affects 15% of the global population over the age of 30. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/998866. Aug. 21, 2023. Accessed Aug. 25, 2023.
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