Dr. Palacios: Osteoarthritis is increasingly present in gynecology practice. Tools like Arthrotest can help us to provide early treatment to OA patients.
Recent studies have proved that osteoarthritis (OA) triples with the onset of menopause because of the decrease in estrogen levels. In many cases, it is the gynecologist who must identify the first symptoms of the disease.Today at Cordoba, the president of the 2nd GINEP scientific meeting, Dr. Santiago Palacios, will present Arthrotest the new DNA test that predicts the evolution of knee OA. This new medical tool might help gynecologists to identify those patients with poor prognostic indicators so that they can act when the disease is at an initial stage, thus improving the patients quality of life.
Cordoba, October 18, 2013. “The gynecologist has become the leading specialist in women’s healthcare. As such, we are discovering that osteoarticular diseases, such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, are increasingly present in our practice,” explained Dr. Santiago Palacios, president of the 2nd GINEP scientific meeting, an event attended by some 300 gynecologists working for the private sector.
According to data provided by the Spanish association for the study of menopause, osteoarthritis cases triple with the onset of menopause in women aged 45 or older. “Gynecologists are the ones who must identify the first symptoms of this disease because we visit these patients on a regular basis, and many of them complain of joint ache”, explained Dr. Palacios, who also added that it has been observed that one of the causes of that disease could be that the decrease in estrogen levels provokes changes in the joints.
“Therefore, giving early treatment to osteoarthritis will allow us to improve the quality of life of our patients”. This is the message that Dr. Palacios will communicate this afternoon to the attendants at the osteoarthritis table scheduled for 05:30 pm. During that meeting, they will present Arthrotest, the first ever saliva DNA test that can predict the genetic predisposition of patients to suffering from rapid progression knee osteoarthritis.
This is the only test of this type in the market. Developed by Spanish company Bioibérica Farma, it may help gynecologists to identify those patients with poor prognosis and that, therefore, are at an elevated risk of needing prosthetic surgery in the short term.
“Genetics play an important role in osteoarthritis. Its onset is due to genetics in 40% of cases, and its progression is influenced by genetics in 60% of cases. This new medical test allow us to have better information about the disease and to act when it is in an early stage,” pointed out the president of the GINEP.
The analysis is carried out only once in a lifetime. It consists of taking a saliva sample from a patient already diagnosed with knee OA. It has excellent precision, 82%, and it is based upon the results of a clinical trial involving 281 patients and 31 Spanish hospitals.
“Osteoarthritis is an underdiagnosed disease in women. We gynecologists now have an increasing number of tools to detect and treat it at an early stage”, concluded Dr. Palacios.
