Scarcity of high-quality evidence for common orthopaedic operations

Orthopedic surgeries address diff erent parts of the body, and while they are still invasive procedures.

Knee cartilage (meniscal) repair, shoulder rotator cuff repair, carpal tunnel decompression surgery, and total hip and knee replacements were among the procedures performed. As per the results, carpal tunnel decompression and total knee replacement were found to be superior to non-operative therapy in randomised controlled trials. There are numerous limitations to this review that could have infl uenced the results, such as the inclusion of various study designs of diff ering quality. As a result, researchers believe there is a pressing need to prioritise research, particularly for techniques with a weak evidence basis, and to conduct defi nitive randomised controlled trials to assess their clinical usefulness.

They claim that this will “improve patient treatment, reduce healthcare costs, allow for more effi cient use of our resources, and boost societal faith in orthopaedic interventions.”