Arthroscopic surgery for degenerative tears of the meniscus: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The authors concluded that ''meniscectomy is not superior to nonoperative therapy as the initial treatment for patients with a painful knee and MRI evidence of meniscal tear in a degenerative knee.'' Two years earlier, a meta-analysis from the McMaster University group offered substantially the same finding [12]. This is especially important considering the high frequency with which meniscus tears appear in arthritic knees [5], and the fact that they appear difficult or impossible to correlate with symptoms [5,7].…”

“…Khan M, et al have made the synthesis of these studies showing in a meta-analysis [18] about 7 randomized controlled trials concerning the non profit arthroscopic surgery versus non-surgical treatments in middle-aged patients with or without moderate osteoarthritis.…”

“…The late Kerr White MD, the founding chair of The Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University and the Deputy Director for Health Care Services for the Rockefeller Foundation stated it another way in Medicine & Culture [11], ''About 15% of all contemporary clinical interventions are supported by objective scientific evidence that they do more good than harm.'' In orthopaedic surgery specifically, questions have been recently raised about the effectiveness of common operations such as knee arthroscopy [7], knee replacement [13], and spinal surgery [9].…”