Investigation of C1q-binding circulating immune complex correlates in osteoarthritis of the knee: a single-center retrospective study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Osteoarthritis of the knee is a common musculoskeletal disease with an increasing incidence and prevalence. Over the last two decades, an increasing weight of inflammatory factors have been emphasized. The activation of the complement system is well known in rheumatological diseases of inflammatory or auto-immune origin; however, its participation in osteoarthritis is less characterized. The goal of our study was to detect the C1q binding circulating immune complexes and to describe their potential clinical and laboratory correlations. 61 patients with knee osteoarthritis and a control group of 17 non-osteoarthritic patients from 2023–2024 were included. Demographic data, as well as patient history, comorbidities and the WOMAC (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index) disease activity index were recorded. Patients’ complete blood counts, titres of complement factors C3, C4 and levels of circulating immune complexes C1q, the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (Neu/Ly) and Systemic Inflammatory Response Index (SIRI) were determined. The study group consisted of 86% female patients with a mean age of 66.1 ± 1.1 years. The WOMAC score had a mean value of 24.9 ±1.3. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio was 2.05 ±0.17, C3,C4 were within the reference range. The C1q CIC levels in the osteoarthritis group studied were slightly above (19.6±2.7 μgEq/mL) the reference cut-off value (<16 μgEq/mL) indicated by the manufacturer. The C1q CIC level of the patient group was significantly higher (p=0.0012) compared to the control group (6.06±0.85 μgEq/mL). C1q CIC did not show a significant correlation with the WOMAC index or with Neu/Ly, SIRI, C3, C4 titers. In contrast, a significant correlation was found between WOMAC and patient age (r=0.28, p=0.026). C1q binding circulating immunocomplex levels were found elevated in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee joint. We found no correlation between C1q CIC and WOMAC score, blood-derived indices and C3 and C4 complement titers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".