Osteoporosis Drug Might Repair Joints Damaged by Arthritis

Experiments with mice show Forteo induces thicker cartilage

September 23, 2011

A drug used to build bone mass might help relieve arthritis pain.

Many older people suffer from arthritis, which is a painful joint condition. Treatment options have been very limited for some forms of the disease.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of the disease. It occurs when cartilage breaks down, so it can no longer cushion bones as they move against each other in joints like the knee, hips, or hands.

The body maintains cartilage with parathyroid hormone (PTH). A synthetic form is used to treat the bone disease osteoporosis. It's called teriparatide, sold under the brand name Forteo. Researchers at the University of Rochester thought this osteoporosis drug might help rebuilt cartilage in arthritis patients.

To find out, Michael J. Zuscik and his colleagues used mice with injured knees, simulating arthritis. Some of the animals got the drug Forteo, while others did not.

"The treatment with Forteo induced the cartilage to become thicker by 32 or 35 percent relative to animals that were given a placebo treatment," Zuscik says.

Currently, osteoarthritis patients use a variety of medicines to treat pain, but available drugs do nothing to reverse the actual damage that causes the pain.

"In the context of human disease, this is what we would love to do. We would love to be able to take an arthritic patient, provide them with a therapy that actually makes their cartilage thicker, so they have longer lifetime use of their joint," Zuscik says.