Association of Low Dose Colchicine with Incidence of Knee and Hip Replacements

Annals of Internal Medicine June, 2023

Study Design: Exploratory Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT); 5522 patients at 43 Centers in Australia and the Netherlands

What’s Interesting about this article?

• Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disease world-wide, yet no drugs are available to prevent the disease from progressing.
• Colchicine has been used for many years to treat gout, but has not been tried in osteoarthritis patients.
• This study found that low dose colchicine resulted in fewer knee and hip replacements in Australia and the Netherlands.

Potential significance

Anti-inflammatories and exercise may help relieve the pain and disability of OA, but colchicine may actually slow the disease progression and remove the need for surgery.

Link to article abstract in PubMed

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