Drug prospects in osteoarthritis

The traditional treatment for osteoarthritis is with analgesics, NSAIDs and intra-articular steroids. The development of novel analgesics and the reformulation of steroids to enhance local activity both deserve attention. The disease's slow course makes evaluation of new drugs difficult. More sensitive assessments or perhaps human models of accelerated progression are required. Amongst the drugs that might have fundamental action, hyaluronic acid and the so-called 'chondroprotective' agents have attracted recent interest. Their development highlights the difficulty of reconciling adequate dose-ranging pharmacokinetic studies with investigators' enthusiasm for treating a disease that may be subject to a fluctuant course with spontaneous improvement.