Orthopedics This Week reports on the findings of an HSS study led by scientist Miguel Otero, PhD, which found a unique gene signature could help to predict which patients will develop stiffness following total knee arthroplasty (TKA).

Dr. Otero and his team broke 80 HSS patients who underwent revision knee surgery after TKA into three groups. Group 1 were patients who need revision surgery because of known complications that cause stiffness. Group 2 were those who had arthrofibrosis, a condition where scar-like tissue restricts movement and causes pain in the knee. Group 3 served as a control group. They were having revision surgery for reasons other than stiffness like instability or aseptic loosening. Dr. Otero and his team found 1,509 differentially expressed genes in the arthrofibrosis group (Group 2) compared to the Group 3. Only 435 different genes were identified in Group 1 in comparison to Group 3. They hope to narrow the potential pool of genes down to create a more precise genetic signature for arthrofibrosis.

“Think about surgery as a massive injury. The body needs to heal the damage, and scars are often a consequences of that healing process,” said Dr. Otero. “The excessive scarring and fibrosis that we see in patients with arthrofibrosis is an overreaction to that injury, but we don’t yet know why they are overreacting or why their reaction is different from other patients who also developed stiffness after TKA.” He added, “We want to identify cellular and molecular signatures with therapeutic and prognostic value, so that we can develop preventative therapies targeting specific genes or pathways, and also identify patients who are at risk of developing arthrofibrosis following TKA.”

Read the full article at ryortho.com.