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Knee osteoarthritis, cartilage lesions linked to vitamin K deficiency, study finds

Vitamin K deficiency was positively associated with developing knee osteoarthritis, according to this study of 1,180 patients from the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study.

“In the first such longitudinal study, subclinical vitamin K deficiency was associated with increased risk of developing radiographic knee osteoarthritis and MRI-based cartilage lesions,” Devyani Misra, MD, MS, and colleagues of Boston University School of Medicine wrote in the study abstract. “Further study of vitamin K is warranted given its therapeutic/prophylactic potential for osteoarthritis.”

Misra and colleagues took MRI scans of the patients at baseline and at 30-month follow-up, and also measured vitamin K levels during this time, according to the abstract. They confirmed incident knee osteoarthritis through radiograph and cartilage lesions and osteophytes through MRI.

At 30 months, Misra and colleagues concluded that vitamin K deficiency was positively associated with incident knee osteoarthritis and that MRI-based cartilage lesions were positively associated with the deficiency, according to the abstract. However, osteophytes were not associated with the deficiency. Further, they also found patients with vitamin K deficiency were more likely to develop knee osteoarthritis in one or both knees than in neither knee.

Disclosure: The authors have no relevant financial disclosures.