An existing osteoporosis drug can regenerate some cartilage lost due to osteoarthritis, as per an early study presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver.

While the study was on mice, the model of this study closely mimic human osteoarthritis, which develops post knee injuries as per authors of the concerned study.

It is medically suggested that though the currently used medications such as steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, they do not address the cartilage loss behind osteoarthritis that is expected to afflict more than 50 million Americans by 2020.

From News-Medical.Net:

The authors of the current study observed that chondrocytes within injured and degenerating cartilage have more PTH type 1 receptors on their surfaces. This makes them especially sensitive to the PTH signal that prevents harmful chondrocyte maturation into bone in the joint cartilage. Thus, PTH therapy should increase the cartilage supply exactly where cartilage loss is causing disease.

“Right now physicians have no way to bring back cartilage in patients who have lost it to osteoarthritis,” said Randy Rosier, M.D., Ph.D., professor within the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “Our current results, at least in mice, show that we can inhibit cartilage degeneration and improve the volume of cartilage in diseased joints. It’s remarkable enough that this compound delays the loss of cartilage, but these results show it also may be able to restore, at least to some extent, cartilage in already degraded joint surfaces.”

Researchers examined the impact of a daily dose of Forteo-/teriparatide, manufactured by Eli Lilly, and a generic version of teriparatide made by Sigma on the progress of OA following injury in study mice.

The study also highlighted the fact that pre-clinical findings provide proof-of-concept support for the use of teriparatide for slowing down joint cartilage degeneration in OA patients, with even a possibility to reverse it.

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