Dr. Steve Yoon says strengthening muscle around the knee can also help to avoid knee replacement surgery later.
Article Link: Knee arthritis: Stronger thigh muscles can lower the risk of surgery (medicalnewstoday.com)
The research was recently presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
The scientists say their findings, which haven’t been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal, could help with strength-training programs for people with advanced arthritis in the knee.
The authors said in a statement that advanced knee osteoarthritis is a major cause of pain and disability worldwide. In the United States, an estimated 14 million adults have symptomatic knee osteoarthritis and more than half of those diagnosed will likely undergo total knee replacement surgery.
The researchers compared 67 people who had total knee replacement in a single knee with 67 control participants who still had their original knees. Cases and controls were matched for variables such as age and gender.
The researchers compared MRIs of the thigh at the time of surgery as well as two years before and four years before. They also used a deep-learning model to segment and compute volumes of the thigh muscles.
Comparing participants who underwent total knee replacement with the control group, the researchers reported that a higher ratio of quadriceps to hamstring volume significantly showed lower odds of total knee replacement.
Dr. Steve Yoon, a physiatrist and director of The Regenerative Sports and Joint Clinic at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today that stabilization of the knee joint and decreasing its load with movement and activity can help decrease the degradation of the tissues within the joint such as cartilage and the menisci.
“Studies like this emphasize that strength can have an overall impact with the degradation of a joint,” Yoon said. “It’s a reminder that everyone can play a role in their overall joint health. For some people, this will change the way they exercise and perhaps encourage incorporating leg strength training into their exercise routine.”
