Abstract
New research by a team of Chinese investigators published in the journal Nature identified eight oral bacterial biomarkers to differentiate rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from osteoarthritis (OA) that could provide the information needed for the development of non-invasive arthritis screening.
“Many clinical studies have shown that RA and OA may be associated with oral microbiota and are affected by it,” the authors wrote. “However, recent findings suggest that OA may also be regulated by the microbiome, but there are very few studies describing the potential effects of oral microbiota in patients with OA.”
For this study, the investigators compared the oral microbiota profiles of 110 RA patients, 67 OA patients and 155 healthy subjects, which showed significant differences between RA patients, OA patients and the healthy controls.
Sebastian Kaulitzki / Science Photo / Getty Images
