What Comes First? Multitissue Involvement Leading to Radiographic Osteoarthritis: Magnetic Resonance Imaging–Based Trajectory Analysis Over Four Years in the Osteoarthritis Initiative

Abstract

Our findings indicate that the presence of specific structural features of MRI-detected joint damage 2 years prior to incident radiographic OA increases the risk of incident radiographic OA. However, 1 year prior to radiographic OA, the presence of almost any abnormal morphologic feature increases the risk of radiographic OA in the subsequent year.