The risk of knee cartilage loss now can be easily predicted by a simple clinical examination of quadriceps strength, findings of a recently published population-based cohort in the Journal of Rheumatology. This is the first study of its kind involved 163 participants (having knee pain) with age of 40 to 79 years. These participants went through quadriceps weakness examination with manual isometric strength testing involved a 3-point scoring system: 0 (poor resistance), 1 (moderate), and 2 (full) which was segmented as weak (grade 0/1) versus normal (grade 2). The MRI of the more symptomatic knee was measured at baseline and the mean of 3.3 years and the grading of cartilage rated from zero to four.

The association between whole knee cartilage loss and quadriceps weakness, and secondary analyses with compartment-specific cartilage loss were evaluated using the exponential regression analysis by adjusting sex, age, baseline MRI cartilage score, body mass index, and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Arthritis Index pain score. Out of 163, 11.9% of participants exhibited the baseline quadriceps weakness. The cartilage loss noticed to be higher among those with quadriceps weakness and particularly when the loss occurred in the medial tibiofemoral (TF) compartment. This considered weakness as the predictor for whole knee cartilage loss.