1. Year in review
Biochemical markers
Erwin (W.E.) van Spil, MD, PhD
University Medical Center Utrecht
Utrecht, the Netherlands
2. Erwin (W.E.) Van Spil
PhD, MD
Univ. Med. Cent. Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Disclosure Information
I have no financial relationships with commercial interests to disclose
My presentation does not include discussion of off-label or investigational use.
3. Search and selection strategy
• PubMed
• Between 01-04-2018 and 01-03-2019
• Titles and abstracts
– Osteoarthritis and synonyms
– Biomarkers, markers and synonyms
– Blood, urine, synovial fluid and synonyms
• Screening by one researcher
4. Search and selection strategy
Total
1,168 hits
English
1,141 hits
Original data
914 hits
Human
690 hits
OA
448 hits
Clinical
336 hits
Soluble markers in body fluids of
human OA patients
116 hits
English
1,141 hits
Original data
914 hits
5. Results
General overview
116 Hits
• Knee 80 hits
• Unspecified 9 hits
• Hand 6 hits
• Knee and hip 6 hits
• TMJ 5 hits
• Hip 4 hits
• Knee and hand 2 hits
• Multiple 2 hits
• Ankle 1 hit
• Lumbar 1 hit
Intervention(s) 26 hits
7. Results
Novel markers
• Cathepsin K generated type X collagen neo-epitope
(Col10neo) in plasma (Hu et al. 2019)
• Serum adropin (Gundogdu et al. 2018)
• Serum type IIB collagen NH2-propeptide (PIIBNP, hsPRO-C2)
(Luo et al. 2018)
• Aggrecanase degradation of type III collagen (COL3-
ADAMTS) in serum (Bay-Jensen et al. 2018)
• Thrombospondin-4 fragments in serum (Maly et al. 2019)
• Serum CTXIII and microRNA-98 (Zheng et al. 2018)
• Serum microRNA-300 (Zhou et al. 2019)
• …
8. Conclusions
Novel markers
Majority
• Tested for knee OA
• In small cohorts
• Alone or with one other marker
• Case-control design
• K&L grade for radiographic severity
New markers can be useful, but need further characterisation
• In larger and well-characterized populations
• Together with other markers
• Determine specificity for joint(s), OA, individual joint tissues
or OA features
11. Results
Biomarkers and intervention(s)
• COLKOA trial: 110 people with symptomatic knee OA
• Colchicine 0.5 mg BID for 16 weeks
• Primary endpoint: ≥30 improvement total WOMAC
Leung et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26:631-40
12. Results
Biomarkers and intervention(s)
Biomarker outcomes in per protocol analysis
• Serum hsCRP and SF CTXI reduced at study end in
colchicine vs. placebo arm
• SF IL6, IL8, TNFα, CD14, IL18 reduced, but not statistically
significantly
Leung et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26:631-40
13. Results
Biomarkers and intervention(s)
Leung et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26:631-40
Baseline data SF
CTX II
Cartilage
loss
BML size Effusion size Infrapatellar
synovitis
SF IL-6 (pg/ml) 0.454** 0.525* -0.062 0.213 0.304
SF IL-8 (pg/ml) 0.273* 0.675** 0.310 0.261 0.475*
SF TNF-α (pg/ml) 0.264* 0.579** 0.039 0.501* 0.536*
SF CD14 (ng/ml) 0.549** 0.581** 0.094 0.609** 0.527*
SF IL-18 (pg/ml) 0.409** 0.070 -0.259 0.198 0.418
SF CTXII (ng/ml) - -0.035 -0.403 0.056 0.243
urine CTXII/Cr
(ng/mmol)
-0.031 0.493* 0.073 0.299 0.434
serum hsCRP (mg/l) 0.026 0.321 -0.475* 0.115 0.260
Spearman’s rho correlations , * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01
Selection of positive findings
N=20 for MRI parameters
14. Results
Biomarkers and intervention(s)
• DOXY trial: 431 women with unilateral radiographic knee OA
• 30 Months of doxycycline (DOXY) 100 mg or placebo BID
• DOXY reduced JSW loss at 16 and 30 months
• No pain reduction
• Predictors, at baseline and 18 months, in plasma:
– lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP)
– soluble Toll-like receptor 4 (sTLR4)
– IL6
Brandt et al. Arthritis and Rheumatism 2005;52:2015-25Huang et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26:1658-65
16. Biochemical markers are used in intervention studies
• As surrogate endpoints
– Can be more sensitive and dynamic than structural and clinical
outcomes
– Are less specific for the index joint
• To inform about the working mechanism of the intervention
– Effect of adjusting for treatment group
– Interaction with treatment group
• No data on some of the major potential DMOADs so far
Conclusions
Biomarkers and intervention(s)
18. Results
Subgroups or phenotypes
• Tanezumab, NGF inhibitor
• Six phase 3 clinical trials in knee and hip OA, N=7301
• 56 Adjudicated cases of type 2 rapidly progressive OA (RPOA)
• Serological biochemical marker profiles
Cartilage degradation, synovitis, bone signaling, inflammation,
connective tissue turnover, protease burden
Karsdal et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2019;27:484-92
20. Results
Subgroups or phenotypes
• Exercise trial: 42 women with knee pain
– K&L grade 0/1 in 32 women
– K&L grade 2/3 in 10 women
• 12 Weekly supervised 90-minute exercise classes
– No other treatment
• Outcome assessment at 12 and 24 weeks
Azukizawa et al. Cartilage 2018
22. Results
Subgroups or phenotypes
• Estonian cohort: 60 middle-aged people
• Radiographic JSN and osteophytes
– Tibiofemoral
– Patellofemoral
• 60 Markers in plasma (Luminex)
– Chemokines
– Cytokines
– Growth factors
Kisand et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26:1045-54
23.
24. Kisand et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26:1045-54
25. Conclusions
Subgroups or phenotypes
• Biochemical markers could support subgroup/phenotype
identification
• Probably multiple markers required
– Multiple markers for the same domain (e.g. cartilage turnover)
– Markers for multiple domains (e.g. cartilage, bone, synovium)
• Observational studies: cluster analysis, factor analysis, group-
based trajectory modelling etc.
• Intervention studies
– Study interaction of marker vs. intervention and outcome
– Include marker in the selection criteria
26. Final conclusions
• Biochemical markers added nuance to studies and
generated some interesting hypotheses
• No major breakthroughs though
• Particularly the lack of specificity for the index joint(s)
remains a major drawback
• Biomarker panels and SF assessments might be helpful
in overcoming some of the challenges in this field
28. Last reviews
2017 (F.E. Watt)
• “…Strength is seen in studies with large numbers,
prospective sampling, high quality clinical and imaging
data, robust biomarker measurement and considered
bioinformatic/statistical approaches…”
• “…Challenges which are being addressed include a
perhaps excessive focus on the best-studied serum
biomarkers of matrix degradation, and a lack of gold
standard definition for early OA…”
Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26(3):312-18
29. Last reviews
2018 (Saberi Hosnijeh et al.)
• “…a low number of articles published about other joints
other than the knee…”
• “…assessment of multiple biomarkers associated with
different joint tissue types like cartilage, bone, and
synovium, products of pathological pathways and even
genetic factors, is required for considering a
personalized medication protocol for the treatment of
OA…”
• “…The number of investigative biomarkers has increased
rapidly with expansion of proteomics. Metabolic changes
of joint tissues start long before the onset of structural
alterations. Therefore, identification of early OA
biomarkers will help…”
Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2019;27(3):412-23
30. Kisand et al. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 2018;26:1045-54
Editor's Notes
Adropin, PIIBNP and COL3-ADAMTS have negative associations
MicroRNA-98 associated with immune status. Non-coding for proteins.
No efficacy for the primary or any of the secondary outcomes, in the intention to treat nor the per protocol analysis
No efficacy in MRI effusion or infrapatellar synovitis in a subset of 20 persons
The sample size was smaller than expected and, therefore, the study underpowered
No associations with WOMAC pain and function
Effect on JSW in the index knee only, not in the contralateral one
Pain was low at baseline, so maybe a floor effect
The first study to measure sTLR4 in knee OA patients
Models were adjusted for the corresponding baseline measure
Models did not change from adjustment for treatment group
TIC=time integrated over 12 or 18 months
N=7301 tanezumab treated
Matching by propensity scores on multiple variables
Chronic use is NSAID on 90 or more days during tanezumab treatment
Remodeling markers in men, angiogenesis markers in women