Ticagrelor treatment decreases osteoarthritis risk, finds new study
USA: A five-year-long study found ticagrelor treatment to be associated with a 29% lower risk of developing osteoarthritis (OA) compared to clopidogrel. The study is published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology. The researchers hypothesized that OA reduction in patients who received ticagrelor could be partly due to increased extracellular adenosine.
Osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease, is a common cause of disability and joint pain. Despite this, effective treatments for the condition are lacking. Extracellular adenosine has anti‐inflammatory effects and can treat and prevent OA in animal models. Clopidogrel and ticagrelor are used for the treatment of coronary artery disease but only ticagrelor increases extracellular adenosine.
Matthew C. Baker, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States, and colleagues determined whether treatment with ticagrelor was associated with a lower risk of OA.
The researchers conducted a 1:2 propensity score matching analysis using the Optum Clinformatics Data Mart from 2011 to 2017. Patients who received either ticagrelor or clopidogrel for at least 90 days were included. Those having a prior diagnosis of OA or inflammatory arthritis were excluded. OA was identified using the International Classification of Diseases codes.
The primary outcome was the time to diagnosis of OA after treatment with ticagrelor versus clopidogrel.
Key findings of the study include:
- Propensity score-matched cohort consisted of 7,007 ticagrelor‐treated patients and 14,014 clopidogrel‐treated patients, with a median number of days on the treatment of 287 and 284 respectively.
- For both groups, the mean age was 64 years, and 73% of the patients were male.
- Multivariate Cox‐regression analysis estimated a hazard ratio of 0.71 for developing OA after treatment with ticagrelor compared to clopidogrel.
"Treatment with ticagrelor was associated with a 29% lower risk of developing OA compared to clopidogrel over five years of follow‐up. We hypothesize that the reduction in OA seen in patients who received ticagrelor may in part be due to increased extracellular adenosine," concluded the authors.
The study, "Osteoarthritis risk is reduced after treatment with ticagrelor compared to clopidogrel: a propensity score matching analysis," is published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology.
