FRIDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) -- The serum level of soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1), a biochemical thought to be associated with cartilage damage and inflammation in osteoarthritis, offers clinicians the first biochemical predictor of the development of severe osteoarthritis, according to a study in the August issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.

Georg Schett, M.D., of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Erlangen, Germany, and colleagues studied 60 patients who had hip or knee replacement surgery over a 15-year period, beginning in 1990, to discover factors other than overweight and age associated with severe osteoarthritis. Among the factors investigated were demographic and lifestyle attributes and the presence of VCAM-1.

The authors note that the first, second, and third tertiles of VCAM-1 levels were associated with elevated rates of joint replacement: 1.9, 4.2, and 10.1 per 1,000 person-years, respectively. The relative risk of joint replacement surgery in the highest VCAM-1 tertile versus the lowest was 3.9. The researchers found that adding VCAM-1 level to an existing osteoarthritis risk model that included age, sex, and body mass index significantly improved model discrimination, calibration and accuracy of risk classification.

"The level of soluble VCAM-1 emerged as a strong and independent predictor of the risk of hip and knee joint replacement due to severe osteoarthritis. If our findings can be reproduced in other epidemiologic cohorts, they will assist in routine risk classification and will contribute to a better understanding of the etiology of osteoarthritis," Schett and colleagues conclude.

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