Repeated measurement study of hand osteoarthritis in an apparently healthy Caucasian population

The rate of hand osteoarthritis (OA) progression remains controversial due to a shortage of longitudinal studies. We performed a longitudinal, 8-year follow-up study to evaluate the rate of hand OA progression in men and women. This analysis included the influence of age, sex, anthropometric traits, baseline level of hand OA, smoking, alcohol consumption, and familial effects on the progression rate of hand OA. The collected data included information on 263 (127 males and 136 females) Chuvashians (Russian Federation) who had been assessed in 1994 and 2002 by the same investigators. The Kellgren-Lawrence (K-L) grading system was applied to assess the extent of OA development from hand radiographs for various joints and for the hand as a whole. We found high and statistically significant correlations between initial and repeated OA scores but no association between the rate of hand OA progression and anthropometric features, life-style factors, or familial effects. A positive correlation was observed between baseline levels of OA in distal interphalangeal (DIP) joints and the rate of its progression in postmenopausal women. Our results showed a significant difference between the sexes in sum K-L score of metacarpophalangeal (MP) joints in a young (<47) population and in a score of affected DIP joints (K-L ≥ 2) in the population over the age of 47 (i.e., most of females were postmenopausal). Our data also suggest a weak but significant correlation in the rate of OA progression in DIP and proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joints and weak negative associations between DIP and MP joints, especially in females.