profiling of human synovial fluid suggests increased protein interplay in early-osteoarthritis (OA) that is lost in late-stage OA, Molecular & Cellular Proteomics (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mcpro.2022.100200. This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Objective To estimate the risk of developing comorbidities in patients after physician‐diagnosed knee or hip osteoarthritis (OA). Methods This was a cohort study using Swedish longitudinal health care register data; we studied residents in the Skåne region age ≥35 years on January 1, 2010 who were free from diagnosed hip or knee OA (n = 548,681). We then identified subjects with at least 1 new diagnosis of knee or hip OA (incident OA) between 2010 and 2017 (n = 50,942 considered exposed). Subjects without diagnosed OA were considered unexposed. From January 2010 both unexposed and exposed subjects were observed for the occurrence of 18 different predefined comorbidities until either relocation outside of the region, death, occurrence of the comorbidity, or December 2017, whichever came first. We calculated unadjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and adjusted HRs of comorbidities using Cox models with knee and hip OA as time‐varying exposures. Results Subjects with incident knee or hip OA had 7% to 60% higher adjusted HRs (range 1.07–1.60) of depression, cardiovascular diseases, back pain, and osteoporosis than individuals without an OA diagnosis. An increased risk of diabetes mellitus was found only for knee OA (adjusted HR 1.19 [95% confidence interval 1.13–1.26]). For the rest of the diagnoses, we found either no increased risk or estimates with wide confidence intervals, excluding clear interpretations of the direction or size of effects. Conclusion Incident physician‐diagnosed knee and hip OA is associated with an increased risk of depression, cardiovascular diseases, back pain, osteoporosis, and diabetes mellitus. However, the latter was only found for knee OA.

No abstract

Purpose To investigate the impact of COVID-19 in Sweden on rates of knee and hip surgeries. Methods We used healthcare data for the population of the southernmost region in Sweden (1.4 million inhabitants). We did an interrupted time-series analysis to estimate changes in rates and trends of joint replacements (JR), arthroscopies, and fracture surgeries for knee or hip in April–December 2020 compared to pre-COVID-19 levels adjusting for seasonal variations. Results We found a drop of 54% (95% CI 42%; 68%) and 42% (95% CI 32%; 52%), respectively, in the rate of JRs and arthroscopies in April 2020 when compared to the counterfactual scenario. This was followed by an increase that brought the rates of JRs and arthroscopies back to their predicted levels also during the beginning of the second wave (November–December 2020). Acute fracture surgeries were largely unaffected, i.e. did not show any decrease as observed for the other surgeries. Conclusions In southern Sweden, we observed a marked decrease in elective knee and hip surgeries following the first wave of Covid-19. The rates remained close to normal during the beginning of the second wave suggesting that important elective surgeries for patients with end-stage osteoarthritis can still be offered despite an ongoing pandemic provided adequate routines and hospital resources.

No abstract