Arthroscopic knee surgery: the frequent scandal !
Furthermore, if you have suffered any complication arising out of this procedure you will most probably be due a fair amount of compensation.
Ads By CbproAds Arthroscopic knee surgery may be used for 2 reasons. The first one is to confirm and evaluate lesions in the knee joint. For a start, the history must be precise and show a real reason to be concerned such as pain when walking short distances or exercising lightly or even pain at rest. If you only complain of a slight pain after playing tennis for 2 hours, unless you are a super star making a living out of tennis, you'll most probably have a very normal clinical examination of the knee. In this case, no other investigation is required as it would be normal. Let's suppose an MRI shows a "small something". That "small something" is most likely an artefact, a word meaning that it's an image without any importance and should be ignored. This is where many unscrupulous orthopedic surgeons will propose an arthroscopy to "see inside what's wrong". They will say "in any case, we'll do a lavage of the joint or even a debridement".
Ads By CbproAds Why? Unwarranted investigation and unwarranted procedure. A lavage and debridement of the knee joint(thousands are done every day) has been shown to be useless (see bottom of page). So this is akin to an assault! Even with your consent, no surgeon is authorised to do a useless and unwarranted procedure. If on top of that you're worse after than you were before because of a complication from surgery (e.g. infection, added local pain),a complication from anesthesia (post-op vomiting, not feeling well), or just because you have more pain after, you have a better claim. Just having an arthroscopic knee surgery recovery that is prolonged is malpractice if the surgery was unwarranted. And don't forget, the surgeon cannot claim that he has seen something without showing it on a photo. If he can do arthroscopies, he has to take photos of whatever anomaly he sees. The second reason to do an arthroscopy is to repair a lesion of the knee. That lesion has to be crippling, resistant to conservative treatments, give rise to an abnormal knee joint clinical examination and shows on the MRI if necessary. Only then is an arthroscopy justifiable with a good ratio between risk and chances to get better. If you have: - any reason to doubt your arthroscopy was justified - any reason to complain about it or - if you've had any complication out of it, don't hesitate to ask us. It's free advice! We'll investigate your medico-legal case for your lawyer so he or she can decide if you have a claim worth pursuing. We'll help you and your lawyer all along for free as we are only paid on result and that means only if you get compensation.
Ads By CbproAds There is no reason at all to carry on with arthroscopic lavage and debridement surgery. Kirkley A et al.A randomized trial of arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee. N Engl J Med. 2008 Sep 11;359(11):1097-107. Arthroscopic surgery in patients with osteoarthitis of the knee does not add any benefit to a combined medical and physiotherapy treatment. A controlled randomized trial was done in Canada at the University of Western Ontario and Saint Joseph Health Care. Their results have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Arthroscopic surgery with lavage is often used to treat knee osteoarthritis. The aim is to clean the joint associated at times with cartilage debridement. However, the benefits of this technique have never been proven. This study aimed to compare patients with moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis receiving an optimal medical treatment (physiotherapy and non steroidal anti-inflammatories) alone or associated to arthroscopic surgery. Between 1999 and 2007, 188 patients have been studied. The main criteria for result was the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) score after 2 years follow-up. The higher the score, the worst the symptoms. No significant difference was found between the 2 groups at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. This confirms a previous study published in 2002. There is no indication for arthroscopy in knee osteoarthritis.
This study done in Houston on 180 patients compared randomly arthroscopic débridement, arthroscopic lavage, or placebo surgery (small incisions without inserting instruments). During 2 years of follow up there was no difference in pain or function between the operated group and the sham surgery. More than 600 000 arthroscopic knee surgery are done annually in the USA and it is obvious that many of them are unjustified.
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