Alteration in Serum Levels of Calcium in the Patients of Knee Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis affecting mostly the weight bearing joints. Cytokines are glycoprotein secreted by the different cells and responsible for immune response. Proinflammatory cytokines including IL-6 are predominately secreted by macrophages & other cells and they are involved in up regulation of inflammatory response. IL-6 may induce expression of proteolytic enzymes which cause cartilage damage and in turn osteoarthritis. The present study was conducted in the Department of Biochemistry in collaboration with Department of Orthopedics of Pt. B.D. Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science, Rohtak. Forty patients with knee osteoarthritis in the age group of 30-60 years were enrolled for the study. Forty healthy volunteers of the same age group were taken as control. After taking written consent, Five mL of venous blood from the patients and controls was taken from antecubital vein in a red capped vaccutainer under aseptic conditions. Estimation of serum calcium was done on the same day by standard autoanalyzer kit method and was expressed as mean?SEM. The serum levels of calcium were found higher in cases as compared to the controls (pless than0.001).