STUDY QUESTIONS ARTHROSCOPIC KNEE SURGERY (Orthopedics This Week)
Research from Finland, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that the thousands of people who have arthroscopic knee surgery to fix a torn cartilage could be wasting their time. The Finish team found that, though keyhole surgery to repair torn cartilage has risen significantly, there is no evidence that it actually helps.
In the typical procedure the surgeon inserts a scope through a small incision to examine the joint and, if required, also partially removes the damaged cartilage through another incision. The Finnish study found that this procedure conferred no more benefits to the patient than did a sham operation.
In their study, the Finnish team recruited 146 patients, age 35 to 65, with meniscal tears that had developed through wear and tear on the knee. None of them had an injury to the knee and none had arthritis of the knee.
The researchers randomly assigned the patients to one of two groups. One group underwent keyhole surgery to partially remove the damaged meniscus and the other underwent a sham procedure. In the sham procedure, the surgeons simulated the real operation. They manipulat...
