Operative arthroscopy.

In a period of 20 months, over 200 patients (age ranged from high school students to middle-aged persons) with knee injuries were treated by operative arthroscopy. The majority of the injuries were incurred while the patients had been participating in athletic events, either competitive or recreational. Operative arthroscopy offers the advantage of shortened hospital stay, rapid rehabilitation, lack of disfiguring scar, and reduced costs. Patients are followed yearly after the first postoperative year. Improved long-term results from diagnostic and operative arthroscopy, as compared to conventional surgical procedures, are expected. The proof of those expectations will be determined in the next several years as this group of patients requiring partial meniscectomies or procedures for pathologic and degenerative conditions is reevaluated.