Osteoarthritis & Obesity Grading: Is There an Association?

Abstract

Objective: To find an association between knee osteoarthritis and obesity grading.

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in 2016 in the OPD of a tertiary care hospital of Karachi, Pakistan. A total of n=140 patients were recruited through consecutive sampling technique after taking informed consent. Data was collected through a Proforma, which had the variables of age, gender, duration of disease, age at onset of disease and BMI. BMI was categorized according to World Health Organization Criteria for obesity. Data was entered on Microsoft excel 7 and exported to SPSS version 21 for analysis. Mean and standard deviation was taken out for numerical variables. Frequencies and percentages were taken out for categorical variables. Chi Square as test of significance was applied for finding association between BMI and X-ray findings. Pooled t test was applied for finding difference in mean age based on X-ray findings.

Results: A total of n=140 diagnosed cases of osteoarthritis was recruited in the study. Females were 73% (n=102) while males were 27% (n=38). The mean age of the sample was 52+/- 7.8. The mean age at onset of disease was 49+/- 7.6. The mean for the duration of disease at the time of data collection was 3.3+/-1.7. Significant association was observed when obesity grades were associated with X-ray findings of Osteoarthritis. Grade II and Grade III obesity patients both were significantly more in number with both joint space narrowing and Osteophytes (P value 0.013)

Conclusion: Our study found significant association between obesity grading and knee osteoarthritis.

Keywords: Obesity, BMI, knee osteoarthritis