What do you do? Patients and their orthopedic surgeons often 聽the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, figuring that rebuilding it right away is the best approach to stabilizing a creaky knee.

There’s just one problem: Nobody has proved that surgery is better than rehab. And in the U.S. alone, more than 200,000 ACL reconstructions get done each year – to the tune of $3 billion.

Enter a聽Swedish researcher who persuaded 121 young folks, almost all of whom tore their ACLs playing some sort of sport, to be randomly assigned to treatment with rehab and early surgery or a rehab-focused approach, with an option for surgery if needed.

Turns out the aggressive surgical approach was no better than then rehab-oriented path. After two years, the results for both groups were about the same when it came to things like pain and functions of daily life. Oh, and there were 61 percent fewer surgeries in the rehab-focused group.

The appear in the latest New England Journal of Medicine.

Now it has to be said that both groups had plenty of problems afterward, such as knee pain and swelling. And a majority of the people assigned to the rehab-focused group said their injured knees were wobbly.

Still, the researchers conclude that emphasizing rehab and offering surgery as an option down the road could substantially reduce the number of ACL reconstructions performed without harming the ultimate results for patients.

This is one of KHN’s “Short Takes” – brief items in the news. For the latest news from KHN, check out our News Section.

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