Arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee?

In 2002, a study compared arthroscopic knee surgery to a “sham” or placebo surgery in 165 knee pain patients.  The placebo group did not have any tissue removed from the inside of the knee, but they had incisions which mimicked what the “real” surgery patients were left with.  The patients’ progress in terms of pain and function was followed for two years, the two groups results were equal.

A 2008 study, compared a surgery plus therapy group to a therapy only group. Once again, the two groups had equal outcome measures. The authors’ concluded, 

“Arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee provides no additional benefit to optimized physical and medical therapy.”

I wrote before about a 2013 study, which used a sham surgery for knee degenerative meniscal tears.  The sham surgery results were the same as the “real” surgery.