ABSTRACT
Introduction:
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic inflammatory degenerative disease, characterized by progressive degeneration of the articular cartilage, affecting mostly the knee joint. The elderly population is the most affected, intensifying the aging process. The concentration of intramuscular adipose tissue in the thigh muscles and knee OA at different ages remains under investigation.
Objective:
Investigate the cross-sectional area of thigh muscles at different ages with the relationship of the presence of intramuscular fat and knee OA.
Methods:
80 participants were paired into 4 groups: Young Osteoarthritis Group and Old Osteoarthritis Group, both sedentary with knee OA diagnosis II or III; Healthy Young Group and Healthy Old Group, both healthy and sedentary. The groups were paired according to gender and body mass index, submitted to physiotherapeutic evaluation, WOMAC questionnaire, knee X-ray and thigh CT scans. Morphometric analysis was performed manually with ITK-SNAP software (version 3.6), by a single evaluator. Statistical analysis used the one-way ANOVA test followed by Bonferroni post-hoc for dependent variables (p≤0.05).
Results:
Comparison of the cross-sectional area of the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, semitendinosus, sartorius and gracilis muscles between the groups indicated no significant differences (p>0.05). The study of attenuation for muscle adipose tissue indicated no significant difference in the values of between the OA-Young and Aged-S groups for all the muscles evaluated.
Conclusion:
Young individuals with knee OA present muscle morphological characteristics similar to those found during the aging process, characterizing early aging of the thigh muscles. Level of Evidence III; Retrospective cross-sectional and observational study.
Keywords:
Knee Joint; Fats; Tomography; X-Ray Computed; Aging; Osteoarthritis