New and Future Therapies for Osteoarthritis

Over the last decade, there have been several interesting advances in the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA), resulting in renewed interest in this field of medicine. Recent progress in the understanding of the pathophysiology of OA has facilitated the development of new drugs and treatments specifically aimed at effectively retarding the disease process. This chapter presents several new agents that have been introduced for the symptomatic treatment of OA. These medications have different mechanisms of action, some of which are not yet fully understood. Clinical studies are currently underway for some of those drugs to determine if they can exert structure-modifying effects to counteract the disease process. This chapter also reviews major fields of investigation that we believe hold promise for the near future.