Discovery, development and validation of biomarkers for arthritis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The use of existing serum, urine and cartilage samples from patients and healthy controls for discovery, development and validation of biomarkers for diagnosos and monitoring arthritis
IRAS ID
157261
Contact name
Mohammed Sharif
Contact email
Research summary
Arthritis is a major cause of pain and disability in the industralized world. Osteoarthritis (OA), is the most common form of arthritis, and is becoming increasingly more prevalent as the population ages and becomes more obese. There are over 100 million people affected by OA in the EU countries. Diagnosis of OA depends on patient-reported pain and disability, followed by X-ray and blood biochemistry. These tests all identify late-stage disease and there are currently no effective biochemical tests that can be used to make an early diagnosis, predict the course of disease with time, or monitor response to therapy. Many research programmes aim to develop pharmaceutical treatments for OA that will alter the course of the disease, but these programmes are significantly hampered by the lack of good biochemical methods for early detection and monitoring of OA.
Over the last 2 decades we and other researchers have demonstrated that serum levels of macromolecules (biomarkers) can provide a way of measuring the disease processes in OA and other arthritidies. There are many macromolecules that have been proposed as putative markers of OA and other forms of arthritis. These biomarkers have been shown to be associated with biological and pathological processes, have some diagnostic value, and predicted radiographic disease progression, as well as pain and disability in OA patients. Unfortunately, these biomarkers lack both the specificity and the sensitivity to adequately discriminate individual patients from controls, or to suggest who will get worse over time. During the last 5 years a number of new biomarkers have been identified using proteomic studies which appear to be more disease-specific. We wish to use serum, synovial fluid, urine and cartilage sections from previous studies of well characterised cohorts of patients different forms of arthritis and controls for further characterization, development and validation of assays for the biomarkers.
REC name
London - Bloomsbury Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1046
Date of REC Opinion
6 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion