Inflammation in osteoarthritis: the latest progress and ongoing challenges

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The understanding of inflammation in osteoarthritis is rapidly evolving. This review highlights important basic science, mechanistic, and clinical findings since 2020 that underscore the current notion of osteoarthritis as an inflammatory disease. RECENT FINDINGS: There exists a disconnect between clinical radiographic findings and patient symptoms in osteoarthritis. Inflammation, in particular synovitis, has been put forward as a potential explanation for this disconnect. New findings have shed light on the temporal dynamics and activation states of joint-resident or systemically derived immune cell populations, notably macrophages, that participate in the inflammatory response. The…