“Synergy” is the interaction of two or more factors to produce a combined outcome greater than the sum of their individual effects. It is interesting to consider synergism in the context of osteoarthritis (OA) as a “whole-joint disease”, and how the combination of individual events or risk-factors that contribute to OA initiation and/or progression, may have more than just additive effects on joint-wide OA pathology and its systemic symptomatic consequences. This idea is highlighted in an interesting paper by McCulloch et al in the current issue, where the authors studied the effect of concomitant focal cartilage injury on the severity and progression of post-traumatic (pt)OA joint pathology and pain induced by destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) in mice.
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", language="en", issn="1063-4584", doi="10.1016/j.joca.2019.06.010", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joca.2019.06.010" }