A Perspective on Osteoarthritis Research in Singapore

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is common and is one of the five leading causes of disability in Singapore; it entails significant cost to society. Singapore is one of the faster ageing populations in Asia and obesity is on the rise. The public health consequences of OA, particularly knee OA are therefore expected to rise dramatically. There is thus an urgent need for advancement in research in this area. An accurate estimate of the prevalence of knee OA would improve the understanding of its impact in different sectors of society, and facilitate public health decision-making and resource allocation to address this upcoming challenge in public health. Currently there is no proven drug that slows down the osteoarthritis process and management of knee OA is symptomatic. Identification of genetic, environmental, inflammatory and biomechanical risk factors will help us to understand the pathogenesis and find factors for its prevention. There is a need for early diagnosis of knee OA and identifying subjects who are more likely to benefit from drug treatment. Effort is needed in the discovery of drugs that have disease modifying effect to treat this disabling disease. Understanding the biomechanical factors underlying knee OA may also lead to the discovery of new recommendation and treatment strategies

Disease Characteristics of the Singapore Systemic Sclerosis Cohort

Introduction: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) has one of the worst prognoses among autoimmune diseases. Multi-ethnic Western cohorts have shown ethnic differences in disease characteristics. Due to a paucity of data in Asia, we aimed to describe the disease characteristics and autoantibody profile of Asian SSc patients. Methods: The Singapore SSc database consists of prevalent and incident cases from four institutions. Data were recorded annually according to a standardised protocol. Cumulative disease characteristics were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results: From 2008 to 2012, 200 patients (85.5% females; Chinese 78%, Malays 10.5%, Indians 6%) diagnosed at a mean age of 46 years, fulfilled the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) (88.0%) or the Very Early Diagnosis of SSc (VEDOSS) (12%) criteria. SSc subtypes include limited cutaneous SSc (LcSSc) (32%) or diffuse cutaneous SSc (DcSSc) (37.6%), SSc-overlap syndromes (27.4%) and sine scleroderma (3%). Predominant disease manifestations were Raynaud's phenomenon (n=161, 80.5%), gastrointestinal (GI) (n=125, 62.5%), joint pain (n=116, 58%) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) (n=99, 51.8%). Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) by echocardiography was present in 23.2% (39/168) of patients (mean systolic pulmonary arterial pressure 55.0+19.7mmHg). Renal crisis was rare (n=4, 2%). Anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) tested positive in 78.7% (155/197), with anti-Scl-70 (69/197, 35.0%), anti-ribonucleoprotein (RNP) (56/192, 29.2%) and anti-Ro60 (40/193, 20.7%) most frequently detected. Anti-centromere antibodies were infrequent (23/190, 12.1%). Treatment included corticosteroids (80.7%), for peripheral vasculopathy (61.4%), GI (68%), PAH (11.2%) and immunosuppression (62.9%). Conclusion: Compared to Caucasian patients, our predominantly Chinese Asian SSc patients were diagnosed at an earlier age, with more severe PAH, less frequent Raynaud's phenomenon, an autoantibody profile characterised by anti-Scl70, anti-RNP and anti-Ro60, infrequently anti-centromere and more patients had DcSSc