[Perspectives in the development of basic treatment of osteoarthritis]

In a brief review the authors present findings on osteoarthritis, a heterogeneous disease with a multifactorial pathogenesis. Knowledge of morphological and biochemical changes of cartilage are the basis for reflections on the perspectives of basal treatment of this disease, i.e. treatment which will arrest progression of pathological changes. Influencing of the enzymatic degradation of cartilage, some cytokines and the inflammatory process are at the contemporary state of knowledge the only target processes which could be affected by treatment and which could lead to a fundamental modification of tissue changes in osteoarthritis.