Where Are The New Treatments For Osteoarthritis?

FindMeCure’s search engine comes up with as many as 583 clinical trials for osteoarthritis around the world, so as we promised, we’re going to give you some insight about several of them. We picked a few ongoing clinical trials, phase III, in the UK and US, so you can get a glimpse at what’s going on in the field of investigational new drugs and therapies for OA.

But first, let’s take a quick look at the currently available treatments.

As we already mentioned, there is no drug on the market right now, that aims to repair what has already been lost to OA. There are joint replacement surgeries for those whose symptoms are intolerable and hard to manage, but we’re still talking about an artificial replacement, not cartilage restoration. When it comes to treatment, managing pain, reducing inflammation and preserving the motion function are the main goals.

Exercise to strengthen the muscles around the damaged joint is a good option and so is visiting an occupational therapist, who will give you some practical advice on how to do your day-to-day tasks without putting too much pressure on your joints. NMES, neuromuscular electrical stimulation, targets not only your nerves, but also the muscles surrounding the affected joint and studies have shown it’s effective – especially with OA of the knee. And if you are a strong believer of the mind-body connection, along with your pain-reducing medication, you can try creative visualization, in which you imagine your body pain-free and make the emotions as strong and real as possible. There are also numerous supplements you can ask your doctor about, for example chondroitin has been shown to lead to pain relief in 60% of the cases, and in Europe ASU (avocado-soybean unsaponifiables) is believed to slow down the progression of OA.

Now, about the more invasive treatments. There are a lot of drugs both for pain relief and for inflammation reduction, but it all depends on the kind of symptoms you have, so your doctor is the one to turn to when choosing medication that specifically targets your symptoms. Normally, topical pain relievers are effective in treating mild to moderate pain in just a few affected joints. With more severe pain, your doctor might give you a prescription for narcotic pain relievers (which don’t help with inflammation, by the way).

Oh, and don’t be surprised if you get a prescription for antidepressants instead – it’s not that OA leads to depression, although it’s easy to see how it could, it’s just that for some reason antidepressants turn out to be very effective in managing OA pain. On the other hand, they can lead to mood changes and even suicidal thoughts. There are also NSAIDs, or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, available both with and without prescription, and they’re nonsteroidal because as you can guess, there are steroids applied in the treatment of various forms of arthritis too. Though very effective with inflammation, steroids unfortunately have many unwanted effects.

So, now about those clinical trials we talked about earlier. There is a study stage III going on in the US on galectin-3 inhibition – I already hear the questions. Galetin-3 when at healthy levels in the body is okay, but higher levels have been linked to chronic inflammation, hence the study in galetin-3 inhibition. You can read more about galetin-3 here: http://www.dreliaz.org/american-chemical-society-highlights-modified-citrus-pectin-as-solution-to-chronic-disease-marker-galectin-3/.

The study however, focuses on the treatment of knee OA but its findings could potentially be beneficial for treating OA and inflammation in general. One way or another – fingers crossed.

Another study in the US is investigating “the efficacy and safety” of AXS-02, also known as Disodium Zoledronate Tetrahydrate. AXS-02 is used to treat OA pain in the knee, when such a pain is associated with bone marrow lesions.

A study in the UK  is investigating the safety of Fasinumab, a monoclonal antibody to treat acute pain. This study too targets people who suffer from OA pain in the knee or the hip.

Another study in the UK testing a monoclonal antibody and again, targeting OA knee or hip pain is “may offer an important breakthrough in the treatment of chronic pain” and is just investigating the efficacy of higher dosage of the drug Tanezumab.

Of course, there are other clinical trials in different phases, studying treatments from food supplements to behavioral changes (like this one, which studies the impact of exercise on the bones of post-menopausal women).

Currently, there are no disease-modifying OA drugs on the market, but if you are interested, you can read more about them here: https://www.medicographia.com/2013/10/disease-modifying-osteoarthritis-drugs-dmoads-what-are-they-and-what-can-we-expect-from-them/