The very reason The Parker Institute exists is to research in common diseases of the locomotor system
Such diseases together affect more than 600,000 people of Denmark’s 5.5 million population and with increasing life expectancy may increase in numbers in the future.
Over the last decade, the possibilities of diagnosis and treatment of these diseases have increased considerably. The new biologic medicines are currently used for immune-inflammatory diseases, while possibly this principle may develop into a more universal treatment option in the rheumatic diseases. Antibodies have been formed to act on chronic pain mechanisms as Nerve Growth Factor antibodies and several compounds are being raised against interleucins, which are active in osteoarthritis in its inflammatory phases.
As a natural consequence of this development, there is a demand for more specific diagnoses and tools for characterization of the individual diseases. This is true for both traditional immune-inflammatory diseases as rheumatoid arthritis and spondylarthritis as well as degenerative diseases as osteoarthritis.