Research Profile - Dusting for arthritis fingerprints
Dr. Christopher Riley
A researcher at the University of Prince Edward Island is using infrared light to look for early signs of arthritis.
About one in ten Canadians will develop osteoarthritis (OA) during their lifetime, but figuring out who has this potentially crippling disease is not always a simple matter. Dr. Christopher Riley, a surgeon and researcher at the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island, is working to develop a cheap and reliable way to diagnose OA.
At a Glance
Who: Dr. Christopher Riley at the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Issue: There is no inexpensive, reliable way to diagnose early-stage osteoarthritis.
Solution: With CIHR funding, Dr. Riley is developing and testing infrared spectroscopy as a possible tool for detecting the early signs of osteoarthritis.
Impact: A cheap, easy-to-use test for early osteoarthritis would allow doctors to provide earlier treatment for this potentially crippling disease, improving outcomes for patients.
Doctors generally rely on a physical exam – feeling a patient's joints or examining how a patient moves – to diagnose OA, but it's difficult to detect arthritis in its earliest stages this way. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the best tool for diagnosing arthritis; unfortunately, it's not always practical.
"MRI is not the most economical way to diagnose arthritis," explains Dr. Riley. "MRI machines are expensive, and there are not enough people trained to use the machines or read MRI scans."
With a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Regional Partnership Program award, Dr. Riley and his team are testing an older, much less expensive technique known as infrared spectroscopy to solve the diagnosis problem. Infrared spectroscopy involves shining a light through the liquid solution and using a special sensor to see which wavelengths of light pass through the liquid and which wavelengths are absorbed by the liquid. With this information, researchers can identify the exact chemical composition of the solution. Recent advances in computing technology have allowed for more sophisticated applications of spectroscopy, such as Dr. Riley's use of infrared light to determine the types of chemical bonds in joint fluid and blood serum.
"We are trying to establish if fluid from arthritic joints has a special chemical fingerprint, and if this fingerprint changes as the disease progresses or the patient responds to treatment," says Dr. Riley.
He and his team have already detected this OA "fingerprint" in the joint fluid of horses, and they are now looking at rabbits and dogs. Soon they hope to expand their study to include humans.
Infrared spectroscopy machines are relatively common, inexpensive, and do not require much training to operate. If Dr. Riley and his team are able to identify reliable indicators of arthritis in humans, it could have very important implications for the diagnosis and treatment of this debilitating disease.
"I think there is a lot of room for us to diagnose OA earlier and intervene earlier, particularly in young athletes or families with a high risk of developing OA" says Dr. Riley. "We could screen these individuals on a regular basis and begin treating them with moderate therapies and behavioural modifications at the earliest signs of the disease."