Assessment of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with Knee Osteoarthritis

Background: Osteoarthritis and cardiovascular disease (CVD) are prevalent
in India. However, there is dearth of literature among Indians studying
the relationship between the two. This study was carried out to assess
various cardiovascular (CV) risk factors in patients with knee
osteoarthritis (OA) with an objective to investigate their association,
screening and management.  Methods: In total, 225
patients were included in this cross-sectional study. Participants were
diagnosed with knee OA on the basis of  Kellgren and Lawrence
(K-L) classification of their radiograph. Participants were also assessed
for CV risk factors (age, BMI, systolic BP, diabetes mellitus, total
cholesterol, HDL, smoking) with the help of the Joint British Society
QRisk3 calculator (JBS3), which gave three variables: JBS3 risk score,
heart age, life expectancy. Chi Square and Anova p test were used
to compare the variables. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to
find out the relationship between CV risk factors and knee OA. Results:
Patients with severe knee OA had a statistically significant higher
prevalence of CV risk factors (p<0.05>. Some patients were
diagnosed with hypertension or hypercholesterolemia for the first time and
few were aware of the severity of their known co-morbidities. Grade 4 knee
OA patients were found to have a mean JBS3 risk of 38%, heart age of 82
years and life expectancy of 77 years as compared to grade 2 patients who
had a mean JBS3 risk of 11%, heart age of 63 years and life expectancy of
82 years. Conclusions: Our study concluded that there is a strong
positive correlation between knee OA and CVD with CV risk score being
directly proportional to the severity of OA. JBS3 is a comprehensive risk
score calculator as well as a screening tool, which produces three more
comprehensive variables, namely 10-years risk of developing CVD,
physiological heart age and life expectancy.