Osteoarthritis is a major public health issue due to its impact in term of handicap. Moreover, ageing of the world population and outbreak of obesity in industrialized and non-industrialized countries will dramatically increase its incidence in the next years. Regarded as a multi-factorial disease, today mechanistic and inflammatory theories are no more opposed but, on the contrary, are framed within the same continuum: osteoarthritis, inflammation and degeneration. In order to collect major information in a benchmark book on the fundamental aspects of this disease, internationally well-known a.