Arthroscopic Surgery for Osteoarthritis Doesn’t Work
As early as 2002, the research was already available showing that arthroscopic knee surgery for oseoarthritis didn’t work (NEJM 2002;347:81-8). Nonetheless, over 700,000 knee arthroscopies are done in the U.S. each year on middle aged and older people. Tens of thousands more are done each year in Canada. Now a landmark review of the research confirms that all those people were sent for surgery unnecessarily. . . .
This systematic review and meta-analysis looked at nine controlled studies conducted since 2000 on middle aged and older people who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery for osteoarthritis.
The study found that there was a small benefit for pain compared to controls that completely disappeared at six months. They found no significant benefit for physical function. So, after six months, there was no reason to have gone through the surgery.
But there was reason not to have gone through it. The review found that, though there was no benefit, there was harm, including deep vein thrombosis (blood clots in the deep veins), pulmonary embolisms (blockage in one of the artries in the lung), infection and death.
The researchers concluded that “The small inconsequential benefit seen from . . . arthroscopic surgery” disappears after six months but “is associated with harms. Taken together, these findings do not support the practise.”
Combined with an earlier systematic review and meta-analysis conducted this year that found that Tylenol produced a stastically significant, but not clinically important, effect on pain and disability and that it increased the risk of abnormal liver function tests by 400% (BMJ 2015;350:h1225), that leaves little in the way of conventional treatment–neither surgical nor medical–for osteoarthritis.
There are, however, several safe and proven natural treatments for osteoarthritis, including glucosamine sulfate, SAMe, MSM, Glucosamine sulfate/MSM, curcumin, devil’s claw, ginger and rosehips.
For lots more info on how to treat osteoarthitis, see our book, The Family Naturopathic Encyclopedia.
For lots more on how to eat for osteoarthritis, see Linda’s book, The All-New Vegetarian Passport.
BMJ 2015;350:h2747