Bone marrow aspirate injections didn't lead to significant changes for patients who had arthroscopic partial meniscectomy, according to a Sept. 15 study in The American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Five things to know:
1. Researchers assigned 44 arthroscopic partial meniscectomy patients to receive an autologous bone marrow aspirate concentrate and 39 others to have surgery without it. All patients had symptomatic meniscal tears and mild knee osteoarthritis. Patient data was collected after three months, six months, 12 months, and 12 months post-surgery.
3. Of the 95 patients, 83 were included for the study's final analysis. There weren't significant differences between the groups' patient characteristics, intraoperative variables, concomitant procedures, preoperative PROM scores or preoperative radiographic findings.
4. There were higher achievement rates of the minimal clinically important difference for the knee injury and osteoarthritis outcome score symptoms and sport scores after one year for patients who had the knee injection.
5. The study concluded that "the addition of an autologous BMAC injection during APM did not result in significant changes in IKDC scores or radiographic outcomes at the one-year postoperative mark … In patients with symptoms consistent with a meniscal tear who had concomitant mild OA, the addition of BMAC to arthroscopic debridement did not affect the outcome."