Medical Ozone: A Redox Regulator with Selectivity for Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA) are the most common arthritic diseases. Medical ozone has demonstrated its effectiveness in combination therapy with methotrexate or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for RA and OA, respectively. Although RA and OA have been compared from different points of view, few studies have considered their redox status in spite of the oxidative processes that are involved in both diseases. The aim of this study was to compare RA with OA, evaluating their redox status and the effects of ozone on their clinical response to combined therapy with ozone. The redox status of 80 patients was determined: antioxidant defenses, injury markers, two subjective variables (pain and disability), and levels of antibodies against cyclic citrullinated peptides were evaluated. Oxidative stress and clinical response to combined therapy with ozone was higher than in the case of RA. After medical ozone treatment, there was an increase in antioxidant defense and a decrease in injury markers as well as pain, disability, and autoantibody concentrations. Redox biomarkers were able to differentiate between both arthritic diseases and combined therapy with ozone (methotrexate + ozone), showing a therapeutic selectivity for RA in comparison with OA.