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Summary & Participants

For most people, arthritis means simply pain in or around a joint. But there are over 100 different kinds of arthritis, each with its own set of symptoms and characteristics. Our panel of experts will provide an in-depth overview of this common disease.

Medically Reviewed On: July 10, 2008

Webcast Transcript

DAVID MARKS, MD: Welcome to our webcast. I'm Dr. David Marks. Arthritis is a painful and sometimes debilitating condition. This disease of the joints affects 43 million Americans, and that number will only increase as the population ages. What is Arthritis, and who is at risk?

Joining us to explore these questions is Dr. Allan Gibofsky. He's Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Cornell, and a rheumatologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Welcome.

And next to him is Dr. Stephen Smiles, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU. Thanks for being here.

Everybody has heard the word arthritis, but a lot of people probably don't know what it means. What does arthritis mean?

ALLAN GIBOFSKY, MD: In simplest terms, the word arthritis means inflammation of the joint. It comes from arthr, which means joint, and itis, which means inflammation. But the word arthritis is really like the word automobile. What makes, what model, what color, what options? There are over 100 different clinical conditions that we refer to as arthritis. As people understand arthritis, they use it to mean not just pain in the joints, but pain around the joints, as well as pain in the bones and muscles that may be nowhere near a joint. So when the lay public uses the term arthritis, they are frequently using it to refer to all of these conditions, rather than to just any one.

What that means is that the challenge to a physician like Dr. Smiles or myself is to be able to tease out exactly what kind of arthritis we're dealing with so that we can better individualize a therapy for that patient.

DAVID MARKS, MD: Dr. Smiles, what are some of the most common types of arthritis?

STEPHEN SMILES, MD: I believe that what we see most often common are two types of categories. One is the arthritis that we see related to the degeneration of joints.

DAVID MARKS, MD: What does that mean, degeneration? Explain what that means.

STEPHEN SMILES, MD: It is the localization of a process that is localized to the joint itself, rather than a system disease of the entire body that we see in disorders that are categorized under inflammatory joint disease like rheumatoid arthritis. So out of the two largest categories, we would see osteoarthritis, a localized degenerative process of the joint, rheumatoid arthritis, a generalized systemic disease with its major manifestation being a systemic joint disease

ALLAN GIBOFSKY, MD: Let me carry that one step further, as Steve has indicated. When we talk about degenerative disease, generally what we talk about is either normal use of an abnormal joint, or abnormal use of a normal joint. So, individuals who are basketball players and use their knees a lot develop the kind of arthritis in their knees that we would see in their grandparents. Their hands and the other parts of their body are fine.

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