{"doi":"10.1016/j.joca.2025.12.003","title":"Observations of early structural changes over 6 years on magnetic resonance imaging in knees without radiographic osteoarthritis","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: To describe longitudinal changes of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) features in the medial vs lateral tibiofemoral (TF) and patellofemoral (PF) compartments, in knees with no radiographic osteoarthritis (OA) at baseline. DESIGN: In 340 individuals from the Osteoarthritis Initiative aged 45-55 years (51% women) with 430 knees at risk for OA and 250 not at risk, we assessed MRI scans of both knees using the MRI OA Knee Score system. A change in a feature from baseline to 6 years was defined as ≥1 grade increase in ≥1 subregion. We compared risk for structural changes across knee compartments and by risk status using mixed effects Poisson regression. RESULTS: MRI changes over 6 years were common, with 89% of persons (76% of knees) showing increased cartilage damage, 50% (37%) in osteophytes, 75% (57%) in Bone Marrow Lesions (BMLs), and 28% (18%) with meniscal damage. Changes were most common in the PF joint, with risk ratios (RR) vs lateral TF joint of 2.4 (95% CI 1.9-3.0) for cartilage damage, 1.3 (1.2-1.5) for osteophytes and 2.8 (2.3-3.4) for BMLs. The risk of meniscal damage in the medial TF was higher compared to the lateral TF (RR 2.8 [1.9-4.1]). At-risk knee status was associated with an increased risk of meniscal damage (RR 1.8 [1.2-2.7]) but weakly with changes in cartilage damage, osteophytes, or BMLs. CONCLUSION: Increase in structural damage occurs in majority of knees with Kellgren-Lawrence 0 at baseline, irrespectively of presence of OA risk factors. Most early changes occurred in the PF joint.","journal":"Osteoarthritis and Cartilage","year":2025,"id":584377,"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":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8075,"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":1122411,"name":"Aleksandra Turkiewicz","orcid":"0000-0003-1460-2275","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1497208,"name":"Jaanika Paemre","orcid":"0009-0004-7525-7641","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":328897,"name":"Armaghan Mahmoudian","orcid":"0000-0002-1217-6375","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1005779,"name":"Martin Englund","orcid":"0000-0003-3320-2437","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":394982,"name":"Karin Magnusson","orcid":"0000-0003-4851-5794","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":20,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:59:11.978098Z","pmid":"41360180","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":[]}