396275006 |Osteoarthritis (disorder)| is regarded as a degenerative disease, despite the -itis in its name. Because of this, 396275006 |Osteoarthritis (disorder)| is not a subtype of arthritis in the disorder hierarchy but instead, the more general, 399269003 |Arthropathy (disorder)|. Arthritis is inflammatory by definition, but osteoarthritis has a subclass in the medical literature called non-inflammatory osteoarthritis. In fact, according to many authoritative sources, osteoarthritis is usually regarded as a non-inflammatory disease, and therefore it is not strictly a subtype of arthritis.
Structuring the hierarchy this way does not imply that there are no cases of osteoarthritis with inflammation, nor does it rule out inflammation as an etiologic or contributory factor. It is well established that inflammation often occurs in osteoarthritis, and treatment with anti-inflammatory agents has been more effective than pure analgesics in many cases. Despite growing evidence of the role of inflammatory cytokines in osteoarthritis, it is not always necessarily an inflammatory disorder of the joint.
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