Development of an App to engage patients at risk of osteoarthritis

骨关节炎是一种退行性关节疾病，其特征是软骨损失，目前尚无治愈方法。它导致关节疼痛，是全球残疾的主要原因，花费约占GDP的1.5-2%。2017年，工作日损失的社会成本为25.8亿英镑（与关节炎数据相比）。止痛剂不能令人满意地减轻关节疼痛，物理治疗充其量只能稍微推迟关节置换的需要。关节置换术恢复了一定程度的独立性，但不能完全恢复功能，以达到日益年轻的患者群体积极生活方式的标准。在20%的情况下，不辜负病人的期望。近年来已经开发了许多药物（Sprifermin，Loricivint，LNA 043），但在临床试验中失败，因为不能缓解疼痛或不能正确恢复软骨，或两者兼而有之。创伤性软骨损伤导致骨关节炎在以后的生活中的39%的时间，但我们不明白为什么有些患者的进展和其他不。作为更大研究的一部分，我们将通过MRI扫描和肌肉功能测试来跟踪这些创伤患者。该项目将使一个应用程序的开发，以获得有关这些患者在他们的恢复，或缺乏更多的信息。这一资源对于科学界、临床医生和制药业来说是非常宝贵的，可以在早期提供更好的医疗保健，实现健康的老龄化。

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease, characterised by cartilage loss, for which there is no cure. It causes joint pain, and it is a leading cause of disability worldwide costing ~ 1.5-2% of the GDP. The cost to society for loss of working days was £2.58billion in 2017 (Versus Arthritis data). Analgesics reduce joint pain unsatisfactorily and physiotherapy can, at best, marginally delay the need for joint replacement. Joint replacement restores some degree of independence but not full function to the standards of an active lifestyle of an increasingly younger patient population. In 20% of the cases does not live up to patients' expectations. A number of drugs have been developed in recent years (Sprifermin, Loricivivint, LNA043) but have failed in clinical trials for either not providing pain relief or not restoring the cartilage properly, or both. Traumatic cartilage injuries lead to osteoarthritis later in life 39% of the time, but we do not understand why some patients progress and other don't. As part of a larger study we will be following these trauma patients up by MRI scans and muscle function tests. This project would enable the development of an App to obtain additional information about these patients during their recovery, or lack of. This resource would be invaluable to the scientific community, clinicians and the pharmaceutic industry to provide better healthcare early on and enable healthy ageing.