Helping adolescents with arthritis develop the skills and secure resources to assure that their health care needs are met as they transition to adulthood is an important issue in the U.S. In general, the frequency of which young people with special health care needs receive transition services is low and, to date, no studies have examined this frequency.

Although there has been an increase in the number of new arthritis treatments in recent years, the best results will come from more effective use of the drugs we have.

Bioengineers at Rice University have discovered that intense pressure -- similar to what someone would experience more than a half-mile beneath the ocean's surface -- stimulates cartilage cells to grow new tissue with nearly all of the properties of natural cartilage. The new method, which requires no stem cells, may eventually provide relief for thousands of arthritis sufferers.

Some 46 million people suffer from arthritis in the United States alone. The worst cases require painful surgeries to drill holes in and reinforce joints. Now researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are studying an unusually pliant yet strong synthetic cartilage replacement in hopes of providing arthritis victims with some relief.

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis are twice as likely to experience depression but are unlikely to talk to a doctor about it, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Common genetic variants linked to arthritis may also play a role in human height, a new study shows.

Patients with arthritis, the country’s leading cause of disability, tend to be less fit than their peers who don’t have this condition. Studies have shown, however, that they can safely participate in exercise programs to increase their fitness, strength and psychosocial status and that health providers recommend that arthritis patients participate in exercise.

An Australian genetic scientist has discovered two new genes that cause a form of arthritis that affects 22,000 Australians.

Work done in part by researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston has led to the discovery of two genes that cause ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory and potentially disabling disease. The findings are published in the Oct. 21 online edition of Nature Genetics, a journal that emphasizes research on the genetic basis for common and complex diseases.

Research funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Arthritis Research Campaign has identified two genes implicated in the disease ankylosing spondylitis, a common disease primarily causing back pain and progressive stiffness. The research, published online today in Nature Genetics, suggests that a treatment currently being trialled for Crohn's disease may also be applied to this disease.

An international team of researchers led by a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center geneticist has discovered two genes linked to a disabling form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis, a painful and progressive disease in which some or all of the spine’s vertebrae fuse together.

It’s hard to think of scientists in laboratories working toward solutions for medical problems without mice or other laboratory animals, but animals’ roles in at least one major research laboratory may soon be minimal.