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Article: Arthroscopic surgery for knee arthritis found to be useless (once again).(Clinical report)
- Article from:
- HealthFacts
- Article date:
- October 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Center for Medical Consumers, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Arthroscopic surgery is no better than conservative treatment for people with knee osteoarthritis. This was shown in a 2002 clinical trial, and now a new trial has produced the same result. Will it change anything? Will people be told that surgery provides no advantage over drug treatment and physical therapy? Are there any exceptions?
These are just a few of the questions raised by two studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The backstory for their findings are the advances in fiberoptics and instrumentation that have made knee procedures much easier and safer to perform than an open-incision operation. And advances in imaging, specifically MRI ...