{"doi":"10.1016/j.joca.2025.12.002","title":"Does spontaneous cartilage thickening occur in osteoarthritic knees? Data from IMI-APPROACH and the OAI","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: Determine whether spontaneous cartilage thickening (i.e. without specific intervention) occurs in patients with or at high risk of knee osteoarthritis (OA) and compare characteristics with knees exhibiting cartilage thinning. DESIGN: 1447 knees from IMI-APPROACH and OAI with radiographic and MRI data at baseline, one year, and two years were included. Cartilage thickening was defined as an increase in both radiographic average whole-joint minimum joint space width (mJSW) and MRI mean cartilage thickness over the total femorotibial subchondral bone area (ThCtAB) according to per-patient fitted linear regression lines over the two-year period. Knees with decreases in both were categorized as thinning. Characteristics in structural and clinical parameters between both groups were compared. RESULTS: Cartilage thickening was observed in 203 knees (14%). Patients with thickening were younger (median 59 vs 64 years, p<0.001), more often female (69% vs 59%, p=0.011), and had lower KL grades (32% KL grade 0 or 1 vs 21%, p<0.001). Over two years, thickening knees showed an increase in mJSW (+0.11mm/year) and ThCtAB (+0.03mm/year) while thinning knees showed a decrease (-0.15mm/year and -0.05 mm/year, respectively). No significant differences were found in BMI or weight change. Fewer hyaluronic acid injections were observed during follow-up in the thickening group (p=0.045). Sensitivity analyses, using alternative definitions of thickening based on JSW and MRI thresholds, confirmed these findings. CONCLUSIONS: Spontaneous cartilage thickening occurs in a relevant proportion of knees with or at risk of knee OA. This intrinsic thickening warrants further investigation into the mechanisms and clinical relevance.","journal":"Osteoarthritis and Cartilage","year":2025,"id":549227,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7744,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":325184,"name":"W. Wirth","orcid":"0000-0002-2297-8283","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798165,"name":"S.C. Mastbergen","orcid":"0000-0002-8825-6486","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":31247,"name":"M. Kloppenburg","orcid":"0000-0002-9294-2307","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":50672,"name":"Francisco J. Blanco","orcid":"0000-0001-9821-7635","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":394986,"name":"I.K. Haugen","orcid":"0000-0001-7810-2216","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":14769,"name":"F. Berenbaum","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798164,"name":"Mylène P. Jansen","orcid":"0000-0003-1929-6350","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1308082,"name":"Christoph Salzlechner","orcid":"0000-0002-1124-513X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":18,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:07.823422Z","pmid":"41360179","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":[]}