Tiny gel balls that could ease the pain of arthritis
BOmbarding blood vessels with tiny gel balls could help ease painful arthritic joints. abnormal blood vessels can form around injured joints. These, in turn, are thought to cause the chronic pain linked to osteoarthritis, stif f shoulders and tendon injuries.
now scientists have discovered a one-off treatment where blocking the abnormal vessels dramatically reduces pain i n patients with these conditions.
in a recent trial in Japan, people with knee arthritis experienced a four-fold drop in symptoms just four weeks following treatment; after four months, their symptoms had reduced six-fold.
Similar benefits were seen in those with painful tendons and frozen shoulders.
Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disorder, with an estimated 8.75 million people in the UK having sought treatment for it. However, it’s not entirely clear what causes the pain, and many patients fail to respond to standard treatments s uch as painkillers or antiinflammatory drugs.
The condition occurs when the cartilage that lines the joints is damaged, usually due to wear and tear.
However, the pain is often not proportional to the damage: some people with relatively large amounts of damage don’t experience discomfort, while others with little wear and tear suffer chronic pain.
The new therapy, known as transcatheter arterial embolisation, is based on the theory that the pain is linked to new blood vessels forming around the joint as part of the body’s natural repair process, rather than the cartilage damage itself.
Sometimes in i nflammatory conditions such as arthritis, this process gets out of control, causing blood vessels to grow where they’re not needed.
The thinking is that as more blood vessels develop, they trigger the growth of nerves, which mean more pain signals. Tenderness during physical examination is a good indicator that abnormal vessels have formed. The new treatment first identifies the rogue blood vessels using arteriograms — where special dye is injected into them so they show up on an X-ray.
Then tiny spheres, which are a thousandth of an i nch in diameter and made of a special gel, are inserted using a thin tube fed through the main artery in the groin to the problem area, such as the knee.
Once in place, these microspheres are released, blocking t he blood supply to t he neighbouring nerves, which reduces pain signals. as the blood vessels and nerves die, they and the microspheres are
Animal absorbed by the body. studies have shown the treatment reduces inflammation and pain. now re searchers at Edogawa University Hospital, Tokyo, have shown it also provides significant benefits for humans with tendon injuries, frozen shoulder and knee osteoarthritis. Commenting on the new approach, dr Stephen Simpson, director of r esearch and programmes at charity arthritis research UK, said: ‘This study shows that in a small number of patients, physically blocking blood vessels in the joints of people with arthritis may be effective at relieving the pain associated with their condition.
‘However, more research is needed to understand any potential long-term effects.’
TaKing daily aspirin could also help arthritic knees, say australian researchers.
a study of 117 patients with osteoarthritis found that those who were also taking aspirin (for their heart problems) had nearly three times less cartilage damage than those who weren’t taking the drug, reports the journal maturitas.
low doses of aspirin may have an anti-inflammatory effect, but patients are warned not to self- medicate and to seek medical advice