A SURGEON at an Oxford hospital is looking at why some arthritis patients get more pain than others.

Stephen Gwilym, of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, in Windmill Road, Headington, has won £201,460 for research using brain imaging to understand the pain associated with hip arthritis.

His three-year study - the first of its kind in the world - could explain why some people suffer from the condition more than others and are, therefore, more likely to need joint replacement operations.

The results could help pinpoint which patients are most likely to benefit from certain types of therapy, including medication and surgery.

Osteoarthritis, which affects more than two million older people in the UK and leads to joint pain and stiffness, is the main reason why more than 60,000 hip and 60,000 knee replacement operations are carried out every year.

About 10,000 people in Oxfordshire suffer from osteoarthritis.

Each year there are approximately 575 hip operations and 640 knee replacements in the county.

Funded by the Arthritis Research Campaign's (ARC) Orthopaedic Clinical Research Fellowship, Mr Gwilym is using a new type of brain imaging to accurately look at the pain levels felt by individual patients.

He said: "Pain is the main symptom of osteoarthritis, yet interestingly there's poor correlation between the degree of severity of osteoarthritis as shown on an x-ray and the amount of pain suffered by patients.

"We can now monitor how the brain responds to painful stimuli by using special brain scans called Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI).

"If we can find out more about why some people with arthritis have more pain than others we hope to gain further insight into this common but complex clinical problem.

"It may also therefore be possible to predict which patients will benefit most from particular kinds of treatment, including drugs and surgery."

World leaders in pain research at Oxford's Functional MRI of the Brain Centre will be working with Mr Gwilym.

He said: "This is the first research of its type anywhere in the world and offers an opportunity to combine the expertise of the two research centres."

The ARC Orthopaedic Clinical Research Fellowship was set up last year to encourage more orthopaedic surgeons to carry out clinical research.