When the cartilage that is responsible for protecting and absorbing shocks inside your knee joints become worn down, the bones can grind against each other, leading to inflammation and osteoarthritis of the knee. Eventually, the patient will require knee replacement surgery, because by the time knee osteoarthritis is detected, it is already too late to prevent. Today, however, we can know early when this disease has occurred by testing for Urine CTX-II, which can help keep patients from having to undergo surgery like in the past.
Do you know that knee osteoarthritis does not happen right away but that the disease has 3 different stages of progression?
- Stage 1: The cartilage is being damaged, but no inflammation has occurred yet. Damage to the surfaces of the cartilage causes a biological substance known as Urine CTX-II to be created. Treatment to stop the production of this biological substance seems to be quite effective and considered to be the best treatment for this condition.
- Stage 2: The tissues covering the joints become inflamed down to the cellular level. Treatment at this stage aims to treat inflammation by using injectable and oral drugs in order to delay the time that the joints begin to progress to the next stage.
- Stage 3: At this stage, the joint’s structure has already changed, so treatment focuses on increasing muscle strength to prevent patients from experiencing pain symptoms. This is because this condition cannot stop degeneration. It can only help minimize the patient’s suffering and pain.
If you don’t want knee replacement surgery, you have to stop this disease in time in Stage 1!
Normally, knee osteoarthritis does not have a clear cause. However, statistically, most patients begin entering Stage 2 or when they start displaying minor symptoms after about 60 years of age, and within 10 years, the patients will progress to Stage 3, which is when practically every case requires surgery!
So, people began to wonder if there is a way to keep people from progressing into Stage 2 as much as possible, i.e., from starting to have symptoms or inflammation after about 60 years of age to perhaps starting to have symptoms after 65 years of age which also delays the progression to Stage 3. Since the activities of older age patients are less than before, this might mean that patients will have reduced risk of having to undergo surgical treatment.
Accordingly, the way to delay progression to Stage 2 is to screen patients for risks from Stage 1 in order to provide timely treatment.
Know your risks for knee osteoarthritis by screening for Urine CTX-II.
The best treatment outcomes are achievable when patients are still in Stage 1, and the only way to find out if any damage has occurred to the joint surfaces of patients is not by x-ray or any other method but rather is to test for a biological substance known as Urine CTX-II, which occurs whenever there is joint damage. The substance can be detected in the urine, and testing for Urine CTX-II can help doctors know if patients have future risks. This biological chemical can only be found in large joints like leg and hip joints.
What are the benefits of testing for Urine CTX-II?
Before, there were two ways to find out whether or not a patient has experienced inflammation in their knee joint tissues. These were ultrasound and MRI. Accordingly, because symptoms often occur when patients experience inflammation or are in Stage 2, when there is pain, treatment focuses on palliative care through use of medications and will discontinue after patients stop experiencing pain symptoms. At the same time, however, the inflammation does not stop, and patients will reexperience pain later on.
Furthermore, because in the past doctors were able to monitor symptoms by use of x-ray, patients are diagnosed only after their knee joints have already developed osteoarthritis, making treatment too late. On the other hand, Urine CTX-II testing can enable doctors to detect abnormalities in patients sooner.
Who should receive Urine CTX-II testing?
- People who began to experience minor symptoms whose x-ray results do not show significant degeneration. In the past, by the time clear signs of degeneration show up on the x-ray, the patient’s joint would have already significantly degenerated and progressed to the final stage of the disease.
- Patients with risk factors like marathon runners and people who enjoy extreme sports, since heavy exercise can create significant risk for injury.
- People who are 45-50 years old, because cellular changes begin to occur by around 40 years of age and patients start to experience symptoms after being older than 50 years.
- People who are worried that they will have greater risk of knee osteoarthritis in the future, e.g., patients who are 50 years old and worried that they will have the condition within the next 10 years like when their parents required surgery for knee osteoarthritis.
For today and tomorrow, we do not only focus on providing treatment, but we focus on rebalancing the situation to prevent the disease from happening. If you ignore the condition to the point that disease occurs or until there is joint inflammation, no matter how much medication or vitamin supplement you use, you will be unable to put an end to the inflammation and every patient will ultimately end up having to undergo knee joint replacement surgery!
