Knee extensor strength does not protect against incident knee symptoms at 30 months in the multicenter knee osteoarthritis (MOST) cohort

Segal NA, et al. · PM&R

Neither knee-extensor strength nor H:Q ratio predicted incident knee symptoms at 15-30 months (307 knees developed symptoms). A null result that tempers strong claims about quadriceps strength as sole protective factor.

Population

2,275 knees (1,269 women, 1,006 men) with or at risk of knee OA, MOST cohort

Intervention

Exposure: baseline isokinetic knee-extensor strength and hamstring:quadriceps ratio

Comparator

Across strength levels

Limitations

Short follow-up; incident-symptom definition differs from other MOST analyses (which found protection for symptomatic OA); observational.