New research has suggested that if you have a torn meniscus you might not need surgery after all. The study compared the progress of half a million people who either had an operation or had rehab. They found the surgery led to a quicker improvement, but that over time the results with rehab were great – 70% of people who did their exercises did not end up needing surgery.

A couple of quotes from the article:

1. The researchers found that physical therapy cost far less and carried far fewer risks from the surgery, yet surgery was effective in repairing the problem quicker but was more than double the price.  Surgery would fix the problem instantaneously, but therapy could take between 6 months and one year to repair the damage.

2. “Both are very good choices. It would be quite reasonable to try physical therapy first because the chances are quite good that you’ll do quite well,” said one study leader, Dr. Jeffrey Katz, a joint specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The research published in the New England Journal of Medicine can be found here.