Patients receiving arthroscopic lavage or debridement for osteoarthritis of the knee in a controlled trial reported no better pain relief than patients who received only skin incisions without the actual surgery.

The randomised, placebo controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of arthroscopy for osteoarthritis was conducted with 180 patients by researchers from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Baylor College of Medicine and International Survey Research, both in Houston, and Laguna Honda Hospital, San Francisco (New England Journal of Medicine 2002;347:81-8). Both real and placebo surgeries were performed by Dr Bruce Moseley, a clinical associate professor of orthopaedics at Baylor College. Ethical issues were critically assessed by Dr Baruch Brody, …