Microvascular pathology in men and venular pathology in women showed significant associations with hand osteoarthritis, evident from a population-based, multidisciplinary longitudinal cohort study of ageing, AGES-Reykjavik.

A total of 4757 participants were examined for hand osteoarthritis, total knee joint replacements due to OA, and retinal vessel calibre. A 5-year follow-up of incident knee joint replacements was also done.

Adjusting for sex, age and body mass index, a relation was noticed between hand OA, narrow arteriolar calibre, and knee replacement. Further, after adjusting for other covariates, comprising statin therapy, this relationship became significant for both men and women hand OA and TKR prevalence. Hand OA in women showed a relation with narrow venular calibre. Both genders showed the presence of retinal arterial narrowing in hand and knee OA. Venular narrowing in hand OA among women was an unusual finding. All these findings show an association between vascular pathology and osteoarthritis.