Co-relation of pain, function, and quality of life with the radiographic findings in knee osteoarthritis patients

Introduction
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent musculoskeletal disorder. In the diagnosis of OA, both the radiographic and clinical findings are used however, various inconsistencies in these systems generate a need to explore to which extent these systems should be followed to establish a diagnosis about OA. Thus, the objective of the study is to find out the corelation of pain, function, and quality of life with the radiographic findings in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Material and methods
Study design: Multi-center prospective cross-sectional study. 83 patients were screened and 72 patients were enrolled in the study following the inclusion and exclusion criteria. For radiographic evaluation, Kellgren Lawrence grading system, for pain, visual analog scale (VAS) and the function was measured by six-minute walk test and disability and quality of life was measured by Knee injury and osteoarthritis outcome score (KOOS). Statistical analysis was done using the Kendall tau test.

Results
The result showed significant co-relation of pain (VAS) with the radiographic findings, whereas a significant negative co-relation of knee osteoarthritis outcome score (KOOS) sub-variables of symptom, pain, function, and sports function with the radiographic findings. No significant co-relation in the six-minute walk test and KOOS quality of life subvariable was found with the radiographic findings in knee OA patients.

Conclusions
Pain is significantly co-related with the radiographic findings. However, the functions were not significantly correlated with the radiographic findings in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Therefore, in addition to radiographic changes, the function of the patients must be assessed to estimate the progression of the disease.