Knee surgery for cartilage damage does not benefit patients, study suggests

A common knee surgery for cartilage damage does not benefit patients and may lead to worse outcomes, a 10-year trial suggests.

The study tracked outcomes for patients treated for a meniscus tear, who were given a partial meniscectomy, one of the most common orthopaedic surgeries. Their trajectories were compared with patients who had randomly been assigned to receive “sham surgery”, in which no procedure was carried out.

Patients who had undergone the surgery, which involves trimming frayed meniscus tissue, did not appear to benefit and scored worse on a range of measures designed to measure knee function, pain and progression of symptoms.

Prof Teppo Järvinen, an orthopaedic surgeon and researcher at the University of Helsinki who led the study, said: “Our findings suggest that this may be an example of what is known as a medical reversal, where broadly used therapy proves ineffective or even harmful.”

“We now know that these meniscal tears are very frequently found in patients with no symptoms,” said Järvinen. “Over the past 20 years, evidence has accumulated to suggest that most of these findings on MRI are purely incidental.”

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Source: The Guardian, 29 April 2026