A Controlled Trial of Arthroscopic Surgery for Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Another one of my favorite articles

I can’t believe I am at number six in this series and have not discussed a good case of medical reversal! Well, here we go. Going back to 2002 with this one. At the time, when medications, weight loss, and steroid injections[1] had failed to improve the symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, arthroscopic lavage or debridement was often recommended. At the time this study was published, more than 650,000 of these procedures were being performed yearly. As you might have guessed, this intervention was not supported by robust data.