By Otto Rodriguez
MiamiDadeHealth.com
An arthritis treatment that injects genes into affected joints could become the newest silver bullet against a chronic disease that affects millions all over the world.
The injection delivers lab-created DNA within the joint and can be self-administered at home. The new approach has been already used in patients that suffer from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis and the results are very promising and have shown dramatic clínical improvement, according to a study published in Human Gene Therapy,
Researchers believe that arthritis is likely to be treatable with gene therapy within the next several years.
Until now, common treatments for the disease include painkillers, anti-inflammatory drugs, and corticosteroids.
One the greatest advantages of the new gene therapy method are that the medical compounds are injected directly into the joints, sparing the rest of the body.
The treatment has been already approved in South Korea and trials are due soon in the United States.
A daily pill
Another promising arthritis treatment comes in the form of a daily pill. Known as M1V-711, is based on a molecule involved in the turnover of bone and cartilage in the joints, and it works by interfering with the process that leads to joint breakdown.
According to the researchers involved in the study, announced recently, trials showed that after a few months bone damage around knee joints was reduced and cartilage kept the same thickness.
Doctors say this is the first time a drug has been shown to tackle underlying bone structure changes in diseased joints. The pan-European study was carried out over six months with 244 patients aged between 40 and 80 with osteoarthritis in the knee.
