Knee surgery does not help people with mild osteoarthritis, says new study

One of the most common orthopaedic surgical procedures – arthroscopic knee surgery – has no apparent benefit when to comes to age-related tears of the meniscus, says research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Two previous studies found that for people with severe knee arthritis, arthroscopic knee surgery is not effective for long-term symptom relief.

So to see if arthroscopic knee surgery for degenerative meniscal tears would help people with mild or no osteoarthritis, researchers looked at seven randomized controlled trials. The sample total was 811 knees in 805 people (average age of 56 years). In four trials, there was no short-term pain relief in the first six months after surgery for patients with some osteoarthritis, nor was there improvement in long-term function up to two years later in five trials.

The current study thus suggests that middle-aged or older people with mild or no osteoarthritis of the knee may not benefit from the procedure.

Physicians need to carefully weigh the costs and benefits when deciding which middle aged patients should undergo surgery.

“Arthroscopic surgery for degenerative meniscal tears in the setting of mild or no concurrent osteoarthritis in middle-aged patients may have little, if any, effect on short-term (less than six months) and long-term (more than two years) outcomes in comparison with nonoperative management,” says lead author, Dr Moin Khan.

“With limited evidence supporting arthroscopic meniscal débridement for degenerative meniscus tears in the setting of mild or no concomitant osteoarthritis, an initial trial of nonoperative interventions should play a large role for middle-aged people.”

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