A research article in the September 11, 2008, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, concludes that ""Arthorscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee provides no additional benefit to optimized physical and medical therapy."" The article is entitled ""A Randomized Trial of Arthroscopic Surgery for Osteoarthritis of the Knee."" An abstract of the article can be found at the following website address: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/359/11/1097. For workers' compensation purposes, the article raises a question about the reasonableness and necessity of arthroscopic knee surgery for findings of only osteoarthritis and suggests that more conservative treatment, physical and medical therapy, may be just as effective as surgery (perhaps at lower cost and shorter recovery time?). Please share this e-mail with others who may be interested in this information. Thank you! Len Hickey and John Combs 9-19-08