Predicting Long-Term Pain Resilience in Knee Osteoarthritis: An Osteoarthritis Initiative Nomogram

Knee osteoarthritis prognostic tools often target structural progression or surgery and require imaging or biomarker inputs that are not routinely available. Using Osteoarthritis Initiative data, we developed a fully clinical nomogram to estimate both the probability of long-term pain non-resilience (clinically important worsening) and, by complement, maintenance of acceptable pain in radiographic knee osteoarthritis. We included participants with radiographic knee osteoarthritis and complete worst-knee WOMAC pain scores at baseline, 24 and 48 months; non-resilience was defined as a ≥9-point increase on the 0–100 WOMAC pain scale over 4 years. A six-predictor Firth logistic regression model (age, body mass index, Kellgren–Lawrence grade, baseline pain, 0–24-month pain change and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale score) was fitted and translated into a point-based nomogram. Among 2365 eligible participants, 527 (22.3%) were non-resilient. The model showed good performance, with optimism-corrected AUC 0.74 and Brier score 0.15, and decision-curve analysis indicated positive net benefit versus treat-none across 1–15% thresholds and small gains versus treat-all. Early pain worsening and higher depressive symptoms were the strongest predictors of non-resilience. This six-variable, clinic-ready nomogram provides a simple, well-calibrated tool for prognostic counseling and risk stratification in radiographic knee osteoarthritis and requires external validation before wider clinical use.