People with a torn meniscus — the C-shape cartilage that acts as a cushion between bones in the knee — generally choose between arthroscopic surgery and physical therapy to ease the pain and regain use of their knee.
Periodic testing for the next two years showed improvement in both groups. Muscle strength had improved more, on average, in the physical therapy group at the three-month checkup, but at the final two-year checkup, there was essentially no difference between the surgery and therapy groups, including in pain, ability to function in sports and recreation activities, and quality of life. The researchers noted that 19 percent of the therapy group opted to have surgery at some point but had achieved “no additional benefit” by the end of the study
Who may be affected
People with a degenerative meniscal tear, which can cause pain, swelling, stiffness and limited mobility. Rest, along with ice and pain medication, sometimes gives the knee time to heal on its own. The goal of physical therapy is to strengthen muscles needed to stabilize and support the knee joint, whereas surgery aims to repair the meniscal tear.
Caveats
Some data on treatment effectiveness came from the participants’ responses on questionnaires. Whether people who have a torn meniscus from knee trauma would experience the same results was not tested.
Find this study
Online July 20 in the BMJ (thebmj.com; under "More articles," click "Research paper")
Learn more
Information on meniscus tears can be found at orthoinfo.aaos.org (click on the knee in the diagram) and at mayoclinic.org.
The research described in Quick Study comes from credible, peer-reviewed journals.
