Sexual dimorphism as a factor of osteoarthritis in knee joint (literature review)

Introduction: The dependence of some chronicle diseases on gender is commonly known. Osteoarthritis is one of those, as it occurs among women more frequently. However there is still no accepted consensus view on what differences between male and female can play role as risk factors. Some of potential risk factors have anatomical nature (such as ratio ML\AP, Q-angle, articular cartilage thickness etc.), another have physiological nature (hormonal background, features of biochemistry of various processes and others). Understanding of this causal relationships may help in diagnostics and adequate treatment of diseases of the musculoskeletal system.Purpose of the study: The purpose of this review is to describe the dependence of the prevalence of OA on the characteristics of the knee joints in men and women. This review considers anatomical indicators, gait features, as well as the physical properties of cartilage.Materials and methods: This study included results of several studies from the Medline database published between 1964 and 2020, using PubMed engine. Results: Some of the reviewed differences, like knee size, can be considered as reliable, however, a pronounced heterogeneity of the data was revealed, which can be explained by dependence on research methods and tools used. We also mentioned, that the results can be effected by such parameters as ethnics and lifestyle. For more accurate results modern methods, such as Statistical Shape Modeling, and prolonged investigations can be used in future.