Скачать или смотреть Finnish study suggests common knee surgery ineffective

Thousands of people could be wasting their time and money on a common type of knee surgery that a new study suggests... may be no better than a fake procedure.
Kim Min-ji reports. A new study has shown that a
common surgical procedure to repair torn cartilage may be no more effective than a sham procedure.
The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine,... examined the effects of a surgical procedure to treat a torn meniscus -- the cartilage that helps support the knee.
The surgery,... called arthroscopic partial meniscectomy,... requires doctors to make two small holes on either side of the knee -- one for a tiny camera and the other for surgical instruments.
The researchers, from Helsinki University in Finland, divided 146 people between the ages of 35 and 65 into two groups... that were either given arthroscopic surgery or sham surgery.
After a year,... the researchers found no great difference in the patients' knee pain.
The study, meanwhile, drew mixed reactions from the United States.
A doctor at the University of Maryland Medical Center... said that the findings should not be over-generalized,... adding that even the sham surgery has potential benefits, because the action taken to perform the procedure may provide some relief, even if the actual problem is not addressed.
However, a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said that meniscal surgery can provide some relief,... but the effects of the surgery are "short-lived."
In the U.S.,... around 700-thousand people undergo meniscal surgery each year,... which amounts to some 4-billion dollars in medical costs.
The new study could cause doctors, and patients, to think twice before proceeding with the procedure in the future.
Kim Min-ji, Arirang News.