New Growth Factor Could Improve Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

Principal investigator Dr. Hanid Audish oversees medical research at Encompass Clinical Research in Spring Valley, California. Throughout his career, Dr. Hanid Audish has been involved in numerous trials relating to new medications and treatments for such conditions as osteoarthritis of the knee.

The most common disease affecting the knee joint is osteoarthritis. In the United States, this condition affects more than 10 percent of people over the age of 60, limiting their activity levels, reducing their quality of life, and causing them pain. While some symptoms are treated with over-the-counter medications, there is no current drug on the market that treats osteoarthritis itself. Fortunately, this may change thanks to a new clinical trial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to this study, an experimental growth factor may be capable of keeping osteoarthritis from worsening.

Completed by University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers, the study involved 549 volunteers who had knee osteoarthritis. These individuals received either 30 micrograms or 100 micrograms of sprifermin once or twice a year. This drug is a recombinant human fibroblast growth factor. A third group of volunteers randomly received placebo injections rather than sprifermin injections.

Over a period of 2 years, the group that received injections of 100 micrograms of sprifermin once or twice a year demonstrated an increase of cartilage thickness. While this increase was only seen in amounts of 0.03 to 0.02 millimeters, it was deemed statistically significant. However, the high-dose group did not report a significant improvement in their arthritis symptoms, such as stiffness and pain, over low-dose groups.

The total study is designed to continue for 5 years, so additional examination of differences will occur during that time. But researchers did note that differences between placebo and sprifermin groups continued for up to 3 years.