Torn Cartilage and Knee Surgery

Posted by: Curt | Under: General Fitness | (0) Comments

Dr. Minkin has a post over on his blog that pretty much blows the “common wisdom” about torn cartilage and knee surgery right out of the water. Basically, the new research shows that surgery to trim and remove torn cartilage is no more effective than doing nothing. I know so many people who have had knee surgery for torn cartilage and didn’t really think it helped much. Now we know why. It is crazy that it would take this long for researchers to discover this, but the problem with common wisdom is that is is generally accepted without much scrutiny. Note his advice to people with torn cartilage to not do activities and sports that require running and jumping. That doesn’t leave too many sports left – except fantasy football.

A team of researchers at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario have shown that arthroscopic removal of loose cartilage and trimming of knee cartilage is no better than doing no surgery at all (NEJM, September 11, 2008). The only other study that also used sham surgery was done at Baylor Medical School and showed the same results (New England Journal of Medicine 2002;347:81-8). The procedure is done when a surgeon inserts small tubes through the skin into the knee joint and trims the edges of cartilage and removes loose pieces of cartilage from the joint.

…If you hurt your knee and the pain persists, your doctor will probably order an MRI. If it shows that you have a crack in your cartilage, you should never run or jump again. When you run, the force of your foot striking the ground is transmitted up to your knee and can extend the existing cracks. Running 6-minute miles exerts a force exceeding three times body weight. Landing from a jump exerts even greater force on your knee joint. You can usually ride a bike safely because you pedal in a smooth rotary motion that exerts little force on your knee joint. Swimming is also usually safe for your knees.