Ida K. Bos-Haugen, Daniel Huseby Bordvik and Elisabeth Mulrooney attended OARSI 2025 in South Korea. What are your impressions after attending?
Ida K. Bos-Haugen, you recently attended the OARSI conference in South Korea. What is OARSI, and why is this conference important to you?
– OARSI stands for Osteoarthritis Research Society International and is a leading international organization for osteoarthritis research. This year they celebrated their 35th anniversary, and for the very first time the conference was held in Asia – specifically in Incheon, just outside Seoul. With over 900 participants from all over the world, it was a truly global and successful gathering.
Who from REMEDY participated?
– There were three of us from REMEDY who traveled: myself, PhD candidate Daniel Huseby Bordvik and postdoctoral fellow Elisabeth Mulrooney. We both gave presentations and participated in various professional meetings and networking activities.
What did you present at the conference?
– Daniel gave an oral presentation from the Nor-Hand study, which is a unique study of hand osteoarthritis. He has studied different pain phenotypes and how these develop over time.
He identified four main groups based on self-reported outcome measures, and saw that the patients with the most pain also had the most anxiety, depression, catastrophic thinking, and sleep problems.
This highlights how closely linked pain is to emotional and cognitive factors. Interestingly, the majority remained in the same phenotype even after 3.5 years.
Was a highlight related to Elisabeth Mulrooney's research also highlighted?
– Yes, Elisabeth's article on pain phenotypes in hand osteoarthritis was highlighted as one of the highlights of the Year in Review session.
It was also named Publication of the Month in Osteoarthritis and Cartilage in August 2024, and was nominated for Publication of the Year . It is very exciting when young researchers receive such clear recognition for their work.
Was there other Nor-Hand data presented?
– Yes, Marcin Wolski from Curtin University in Perth, Australia, presented results from analyses of X-ray images from Nor-Hand.
They have studied the trabecular bone structure in finger joints and found that changes here are associated with future erosions. This may provide more sensitive information about disease progression than traditional X-ray assessment.
This is particularly interesting for the MERINO study, where we will, among other things, investigate whether methotrexate can slow the progression of erosive hand osteoarthritis. Incidentally, I was the last author on this abstract.
You also had your own presentation. What was it about?
– I was invited to share experiences from the work of developing classification criteria for hand osteoarthritis, which can now be useful in the work of creating similar criteria for osteoarthritis of the back. It was both useful and inspiring – and also led to new collaborative projects being discussed.
You have recently been given a leadership role in a new project?
– That's right. I have now been appointed as the chair of the steering committee of an OARSI-supported project that will develop new classification criteria for early knee osteoarthritis. During the conference, we had meetings in the project group, and it is an exciting and important work that I look forward to contributing to.
Was there also time to cultivate other collaborations?
– Yes, absolutely. We met with our Danish partners and planned further work on an international multicenter study on topical NSAIDs in hand osteoarthritis. We also discussed possible new collaboration projects with international partners. OARSI is an important meeting place for networking and joint initiatives.
How were the younger researchers followed up at the conference?
– OARSI is very committed to supporting young researchers. A separate mentoring session is organized where around 200 mentors and mentees participate.
I was a mentor for a group discussing strategic choices in research and career development, while Daniel and Elisabeth were mentees in groups focusing on pain, networking, and mechanisms.
And finally – did you get to experience some of South Korea outside the conference hall?
– Yes, fortunately! We got to experience both the food, the culture and the nature. We visited temples, tasted exciting Korean dishes and took some nice runs in beautiful parks and natural areas. It provided both academic and cultural enrichment!
