Physiotherapy not inferior to arthroscopic surgery for ruptured meniscus

physiotherapy-not-inferior-to-arthroscopic-surgery-for-ruptured-meniscus

Exercise-based therapy is noninferior to arthroscopic partial ablation for patient-reported knee operate at 5 years among patients with a chronic meniscal tear, in line with a study revealed on-line July eight in JAMA Network Open.

Julia C.A. Noorduyn, of OLVG Amsterdam, and colleagues compared the five-year effectiveness of arthroscopic and exercise-based partial meniscectomy.physical therapy in 321 patients aged forty five to seventy years with a degenerative meniscal tear.  Participants were haphazardly assigned  to arthroscopic partial meniscectomy or sixteen sessions of exercise-based physical therapy; 87.1 p.c competed the five-year follow-up (mean follow-up, 61.8 months).

The researchers found that the average improvement was 29.6 and 25.1 points on the International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Knee kind within the surgery and therapy groups, respectively, from baseline to follow-up. There was a 3. 5-point crude between-group distinction (95 p.c confidence interval, 0.7 to 6.3 points; P < 0.001 for noninferiority); the ninety five percent confidence interval didn't exceed the 11-point noninferiority threshold. Rates of progression of radiographic-demonstrated knee degenerative joint disease were comparable between each treatment groups.

"Findings from this trial any support the advice that exercise-based therapy ought to be the popular treatment over surgery for chronic meniscal tear," the authors write.