[Pyridinoline-containing collagen degradation products in urine in coxarthrosis].

High-performance liquid chromatography of collagen degradation products in human urine for diagnosis of osteoarthrosis was introduced by Macek and Adam (6) in 1987. The aim of the present study was to demonstrate the clinical usefulness of this method in a group of 20 patients with osteoarthrosis of the hip and 10 healthy volunteers. There were no significant differences in number or intensity of the detected signals between the two groups. The results of this study show that the determination of collagen degradation products is not useful for diagnosis or for the control of therapy in patients with osteoarthrosis.