Synovial fluid level of aggrecan ARGS fragments is a more sensitive marker of joint disease than glycosaminoglycan or aggrecan levels: a cross-sectional study

Table 1 Characteristics of the study patients and reference group

					OA score
Study group	Subject number	Male, %	Age, years	Time of sampling, weeks after injury or onset		no.
REF	26	62	27 (17 to 89)	-	1 (1 to 1)	16
AA	48	60	66 (30 to 92)	0.4 (0 to 510)	7 (3 to 9)	31
AI	69	81	27 (16 to 59)	1.4 (0 to 11.9)	1 (1 to 5)	67
CI	123	77	40 (16 to 70)	61 (12.7 to 1926)	2 (1 to 8)	121
OA	29	66	61 (25 to 92)	125 (0 to 772)	7 (2 to 9)	29

Age, time of sampling and OA score in median values (range).
REF = healthy knee reference; AA = acute inflammatory arthritis (46 acute pyrophosphate arthritis/pseudogout, one rheumatoid arthritis and one acute reactive arthritis/Yersinia); AI = acute knee injury (47 anterior cruciate ligament ruptures and one posterior, with or without meniscus tear and meniscus tear alone, 0 to 12 weeks after injury); CI = chronic knee injury (120 anterior cruciate ligament ruptures and three posterior, with or without meniscus tear and meniscus tear alone, > 12 weeks after injury); OA = knee osteoarthritis. The OA score ranges from 1 to 10 where 1 represents a normal joint; see Materials and Methods for a detailed description.

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