Data on 3,919 people with and without hip OA were obtained from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project, a longitudinal cohort of white and African American residents aged 45 years or older. Enrollment was carried out in two waves, with 3,185 people recruited between 1990 and 1998 and 1,015 people recruited between 2003 and 2004. Only those with baseline and follow-up assessment data, including at least one hip radiograph, were included in the present analysis.
The mean age at recruitment was 62 years, 61% were women, and two-thirds were white. Around 17% (n = 655) had radiographic hip OA and hip pain (symptomatic OA) at baseline, 10% (n = 787) had radiographic OA alone, and 27% (n = 1,156) had hip pain alone. The remaining 45% (n = 1,321) had neither hip pain nor radiographic damage.
Over the course of up to 25 years’ follow-up, there were 1,762 deaths from any cause – 311 occurred in the group with symptomatic OA at baseline, 382 in the group with radiographic OA alone, 509 in those with hip pain alone, and 560 in those with neither hip pain nor radiographic OA.
Median survival was lowest in individuals with symptomatic OA, at 16.1 years, and highest in individuals without either, at 22.8 years. Median survival was similar for those with hip pain only (18.6 years) and with radiographic hip OA only (18.5 years).