{"doi":"10.1002/acr.23326","title":"Relationship Between Knee Pain and Infrapatellar Fat Pad Morphology: A Within‐ and Between‐Person Analysis From the Osteoarthritis Initiative","abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>Inflammation is known to be strongly associated with knee pain in osteoarthritis. The infrapatellar fat pad represents a potential source of proinflammatory cytokines. Yet the relationship between infrapatellar fat pad morphology and osteoarthritis symptoms is unclear.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>Here we investigate quantitative imaging parameters of infrapatellar fat pad morphology between painful versus contralateral pain‐free legs of subjects with unilateral knee pain and patients with chronic knee pain versus those of matched pain‐free control subjects. A total of 46 subjects with strictly unilateral frequent knee pain and bilateral radiographic osteoarthritis (Kellgren/Lawrence grade 2/3) were drawn from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Further, 43 subjects with chronic knee pain over 4 years and 43 matched pain‐free controls without pain over this period were studied. Infrapatellar fat pad morphology (volume, surface area, and depth) was determined by manual segmentation of sagittal magnetic resonance images.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>No significant differences in infrapatellar fat pad morphology were observed between painful versus painless knees of persons with strictly unilateral knee pain (mean difference −0.7% (95% confidence interval [95% <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">CI</jats:styled-content>] −0.6, 0.9; <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.64) or between chronically painful knees versus matched painless controls (−2.1% [95% <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">CI</jats:styled-content> −2.2, 1.1]; <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.51).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title><jats:p>Independent of the ambiguous role of the infrapatellar fat pad in knee osteoarthritis (a potential source of proinflammatory cytokines or a mechanical shock absorber), the size of the infrapatellar fat pad does not appear to be related to knee pain.</jats:p></jats:sec>","journal":"Arthritis Care &amp; Research","year":2018,"id":688072,"datarank":0.5101796072493234,"base_score":3.4011973816621555,"endowment":3.4011973816621555,"self_citation_contribution":0.5101796072493234,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5101796072493234,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":29,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1797522,"name":"Adam G. Culvenor","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1797523,"name":"Jan Dörrenberg","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1700534,"name":"Wolfgang Wirth","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1797524,"name":"Anja Ruhdorfer","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1684629,"name":"Felix Eckstein","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":768891,"name":"Eva Steidle‐Kloc","orcid":"0000-0002-3494-0071","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Relationship Between Knee Pain and Infrapatellar Fat Pad Morphology: A Within‐ and Between‐Person Analysis From the Osteoarthritis Initiative","abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>Inflammation is known to be strongly associated with knee pain in osteoarthritis. The infrapatellar fat pad represents a potential source of proinflammatory cytokines. Yet the relationship between infrapatellar fat pad morphology and osteoarthritis symptoms is unclear.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>Here we investigate quantitative imaging parameters of infrapatellar fat pad morphology between painful versus contralateral pain‐free legs of subjects with unilateral knee pain and patients with chronic knee pain versus those of matched pain‐free control subjects. A total of 46 subjects with strictly unilateral frequent knee pain and bilateral radiographic osteoarthritis (Kellgren/Lawrence grade 2/3) were drawn from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Further, 43 subjects with chronic knee pain over 4 years and 43 matched pain‐free controls without pain over this period were studied. Infrapatellar fat pad morphology (volume, surface area, and depth) was determined by manual segmentation of sagittal magnetic resonance images.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>No significant differences in infrapatellar fat pad morphology were observed between painful versus painless knees of persons with strictly unilateral knee pain (mean difference −0.7% (95% confidence interval [95% <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">CI</jats:styled-content>] −0.6, 0.9; <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.64) or between chronically painful knees versus matched painless controls (−2.1% [95% <jats:styled-content style=\"fixed-case\">CI</jats:styled-content> −2.2, 1.1]; <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.51).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title><jats:p>Independent of the ambiguous role of the infrapatellar fat pad in knee osteoarthritis (a potential source of proinflammatory cytokines or a mechanical shock absorber), the size of the infrapatellar fat pad does not appear to be related to knee pain.</jats:p></jats:sec>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":3.4011973816621555,"endowment":3.4011973816621555,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"28704603","pmcid":null,"openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W2734425003","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"N01‐AR‐2‐2258","title":null},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"N01‐AR‐2‐2259","title":null},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"N01‐AR‐2‐2260","title":null},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"N01‐AR‐2‐2261","title":null},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"N01‐AR‐2‐2262","title":null},{"funder_name":"Seventh Framework Programme","grant_id":"FP7‐PEOPLE‐2013‐ITN","title":null},{"funder_name":"NHLBI NIH HHS","grant_id":"N01AR22258","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIAMS NIH HHS","grant_id":"N01AR22262","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIAMS NIH HHS","grant_id":"N01AR22259","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIAMS NIH HHS","grant_id":"N01AR22260","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIAMS NIH HHS","grant_id":"N01AR22261","title":null},{"funder_name":"Pfizer","grant_id":"","title":null},{"funder_name":"Novartis","grant_id":"","title":null},{"funder_name":"Merck","grant_id":"","title":null},{"funder_name":"GlaxoSmithKline","grant_id":"","title":null}],"total_grants":15,"fwci":0.7647,"citation_percentile":0.67661411,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2018,"count":3},{"year":2019,"count":3},{"year":2020,"count":1},{"year":2021,"count":3},{"year":2022,"count":6},{"year":2023,"count":3},{"year":2024,"count":2},{"year":2025,"count":7},{"year":2026,"count":1}],"oa_status":"closed","license":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Facr.23326","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/acr.23326","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1002/acr.23326","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28704603","host_type":"repository"}],"fields_of_study":["Lower Extremity Biomechanics and Pathologies","Osteoarthritis Treatment and Mechanisms","Total Knee Arthroplasty Outcomes","Adipose Tissue","Aged","Arthralgia","Case-Control Studies","Chronic Pain","Female","Humans","Magnetic Resonance Imaging","Male","Middle Aged","Osteoarthritis, Knee","Pain Measurement","Patellofemoral Joint","Pilot Projects","Predictive Value of Tests"],"mesh_terms":["Adipose Tissue","Aged","Female","Humans","Magnetic Resonance Imaging","Male","Middle Aged","Pain Measurement","Pilot Projects","Predictive Value of Tests","Case-Control Studies","Arthralgia","Osteoarthritis, Knee","Patellofemoral Joint","Chronic Pain"],"keywords":["Infrapatellar fat pad","Osteoarthritis","Medicine","Fat pad","Knee pain","Knee Joint","Proinflammatory cytokine","Adipose tissue","Surgery","Internal medicine","Inflammation","Pathology"],"sdg_mappings":[{"sdg_number":0,"sdg_label":"Good health and well-being"}],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-19T12:40:38.802265Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}