Components of TopTreat

We are investigating how the collaboration between patients and researchers within TopTreat is progressing, so that patient participation can be better monitored and strengthened for more impactful and relevant scientific research.

In the TopTreat cohort, we follow 500 people with osteoarthritis over a period of three years. We carefully map how people with osteoarthritis feel, how they move, and how their disease progresses. This helps us understand why the disease develops differently in each individual, with the goal of enabling personalized treatments in the future.

We identify subgroups of osteoarthritic patients based on their biological processes, so that existing medications can be used more precisely for more effective and personalized therapies.

Laboratory models and animal testing do not sufficiently predict how effective a medication will be for a patient. To improve this, a knee joint-on-a-chip is being developed.

We use a smartwatch to measure how people with osteoarthritis walk in daily life, so that we can observe how their walking changes over time. Additionally, we aim to determine whether we can distinguish relevant changes in walking from natural fluctuations.

We investigate how pressure on the knee joint during daily activities contributes to cartilage damage, in order to better determine which treatment best matches the cause of an individual patient's knee pain.

We are investigating whether existing, affordable medications work better for specific subgroups of people with osteoarthritis, in order to tailor treatments more precisely.

We investigate how osteoarthritis affects daily life, which treatments are most effective for which patients, and what the long-term effects and cost-effectiveness of these treatments are, with the aim of providing targeted, personalized, and sustainable osteoarthritis care.