Genome-wide Study for Disease Susceptibility Gene(s) in Patients With Hand Osteoarthritis

Genome-wide Study for Disease Susceptibility Gene(s) in Patients With Hand Osteoarthritis

This is a case-control study involving one medical center and one research institute to develop a data-set containing a minimum of 100 osteoarthritis cases, minimum of 100 independent controls of similar gender ratio and a minimum of 100 disease controls (cases with hip and/or knee OA) to associate DNA sequence (allelic) variations in candidate genes with osteoarthritis phenotypes.

This study is intended to begin at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Academia Sinica (which includes National Genotyping Center (NGC) and National Clinical Core (NCC)), National Taiwan University Hospital.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Patients with the following diseases will be excluded：Rheumatoid arthritis, Gout arthritis, Psoriatic arthropathy, Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy, Hypermotility syndrome, Hemochromatosis, Post-traumatic OA, Other secondary-form OA and Lupus.
2. The individual is excluded if the hand X-rays show MCP changes compatible with hemochromatosis. The site then is obligated to measure fasting transferrin saturation (FE/TIBC ratio) and if >55%, the individual is excluded.
3. Have more than 3 swollen MCP joints equal to, or greater than KL grade 2.
4. Be unable to give informed consent.
5. One cannot participate in this study if other members of his or her immediate family have already been recruited (Only one person from each family can participate in the study).