Intercondylar Spine Spiking and Osteoarthritis

Intercondylar spine spiking has been linked to osteophyte formation of the knee; however, it does not have a strong independent relationship with knee pain. In a study of 950 women in a general population survey, Donnelly et al. found no useful correlation between tibial spiking and pain in otherwise normal radiographs and recommended against using isolated tibial spiking as a sign of early knee osteoarthritis.

In a recent study of 35 tibial specimens from a museum collection, Hayeri et al. showed that the association between intercondylar spiking and osteoarthritis held only for the lateral intercondylar spine, and that the spine height index correlated only with osteophyte formation in the anteromedial and posteromedial quadrants of the lateral tibial plateau.

References

• Donnelly S, Hart DJ, Doyle DV, Spector TD. Spiking of the tibial tubercles--a radiological feature of osteoarthritis? Ann Rheum Dis. 1996 Feb;55(2):105-8.
• Hayeri MR, Shiehmorteza M, Trudell DJ, Heflin T, Resnick D. Proximal tibial osteophytes and their relationship with the height of the tibial spines of the intercondylar eminence: paleopathological study. Skeletal Radiol. 2010 Sep;39(9):877-81.