POS1090 ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ANTIBIOTIC USE AND KNEE PAIN AND FUNCTION IN OA: DATA FROM THE OSTEOARTHRITIS INITIATIVE

Background: Recently, gut dysbiosis has been linked with joint pain in osteoarthritis (OA) (1). Thus, it can be hypothesized that antibiotic use impacts symptoms of OA. To date, there have been no studies assessing association between the intake of antibiotics and clinical manifestations of knee OA. Objectives: To evaluate association between the use of antibiotics and OA-related knee pain and function. Methods: For the current study we used 4-year longitudinal data obtained from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) progression (n= 1390) and incidence (n = 3284) subcohorts, which are publically available at https://oai.nih.gov. The outcome variables studied were Western Ontario McMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain and function subscales. To acquire information about the use of antibiotics, a medication inventory method was used. We excluded participants who used antibiotics at or 30 days prior to baseline (a “new-user” design). Antibiotic users were defined as those with at least one recorded use during first four years of the study. The participants were matched into antibiotic users/non-users pairs using genetic matching based on various demographic and clinical characteristics. The outcomes were assessed at baseline and annually until year 4. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to model the relationship between outcomes and antibiotic use by time interaction. Results: A total of 515 new antibiotic users were matched with 515 non-users. After matching, all standardized differences of means were less than 0.05 indicating that covariates were well balanced between groups. No association between the use of antibiotic and changes in WOMAC pain and function scores was found (Table 1). No associations were also observed in multiple stratified analyses based on different duration of antibiotic use, particular classes of antibiotics, or different baseline WOMAC pain or disability levels. Conclusion: These findings do not support the effects of antibiotics on knee OA pain or disability. More research is needed on the role of microbiota and its modulation in OA. References: [1]Boer, C.G., Radjabzadeh, D., Medina-Gomez, C. et al. Intestinal microbiome composition and its relation to joint pain and inflammation. Nat Commun 10, 4881 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12873-4 Disclosure of Interests: None declared.