Walk It Off: Exercise Therapy for Meniscal Tears Equivalent To Surgery
Exercise-based physical therapy remains in no way inferior to arthroscopic partial meniscectomy for treating degenerative meniscal tears, according to long-term data from the ESCAPE trial, suggesting physical therapy to be the preferred treatment over surgery. At the 5-year mark, the patient’s reported knee function after 16 sessions of physical therapy was not lower than that observed after surgery, with a between-group difference of 3.5 points on the International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Form 100 points (95% CI 0.7-6). ,3, P For the surgery and exercise therapy groups, respectively, the mean improvement from baseline was 29.6 and 25.1 points at 5 years. The progression of knee osteoarthritis, assessed radiographically, was equally low between the two groups, Noorduyn’s team reported in JAMA Network Open . The main findings from the first 2 years of ESCAPE are retained in the long term. These results may inform future guideline recommendations for treating...