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Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common joint disease characterized by degeneration of the cartilage and bone. It is a leading cause of disability in adults and can occur in any joint. OA of the hip leads to the greatest disability of all forms of OA.
Over 500 million people are affected by OA worldwide, leading to a global prevalence of around 7%. The forecast for OA is concerning; with an ageing population the prevalence is expected to rise dramatically in the coming decades.
OA can affect any joint and is most prevalent in the knee and hip, with hip OA leading to the greatest disability
Despite its tremendous burden, there is no curable treatment available and current strategies therefore focus on symptomatic treatment, with only modest effect. This is mainly due to a lack of knowledge on the etiology, pathophysiology and risk factors of hip OA. Still, some risk factors for hip OA have previously been identified on a group level such as age, gender, genetics, race and hip morphology. However, current cohort studies are too small to detect risk factors and predict the risk of hip OA on an individual level. The lack of knowledge on person specific risk factors for hip OA makes efficient and effective preventive and treatment strategies challenging, if not impossible.
Over 500 million people are diagnosed with osteoarthritis worldwide and this number is expected to rise dramatically.
We want to change the current ‘one size fits all’ management into person specific preventive and treatment strategies.
This all starts with better knowledge on risk factors for hip OA and a personalized prediction model for hip OA. However, a lot of data is needed to create such a personalized prediction model. Curious how we are going to do this?
The World COACH consortium is a unique collaboration of all worldwide available prospective cohort studies on hip osteoarthrits.
What is the World COACH consortium?
Prospective data is needed to study determinants and risk factors for hip osteoarthritis and to develop person specific prediction models for hip OA. Prospective means that a group of persons (a cohort) are being followed over time. At the start, or "baseline", most of these people do not have hip OA. However, over the time they are being followed, some people will develop hip OA and some will not. In this way we can study which factors differentiate between people who develop hip OA over time from those who do not. We call these factors risk factors.
Why we started the World COACH consortium
There are currently 8 prospective cohorts on hip OA are available worldwide. These cohorts contain valuable data, but each of these cohorts individually are too small to study risk factors on a person specific level and can only draw conclusion based on a group of people. If we combine the valuable data of all cohorts however, we are able to make better predictions on an individual level.
What we aim for in World COACH Consortium
Our aims are to better understand risk factors for development and progression of hip OA and to develop a person specific risk prediction tool to predict who is more at risk for hip OA.
With this knowledge, we hope to guide future individualized prevention and treatment strategies.
Do you want to share your thoughts and advise us on how we can use this unique dataset to answer your questions from a patient/public perspective? Please contact us using the form on the right
