Arthroscopic surgery of the knee joint

Abstract

Initially, arthroscopy was used primarily for diagnosis. As a therapeutic tool, the arthroscope was first used to treat osteoarthritis in cases responding to knee joint irrigation, removal of loose bodies, and shelf lysis.’ Development of fiberoptic arthroscopes, which provided more light and were more reliable, made further advances possible. Although arthroscopic meniscus surgery was first performed in 1962, it was not until the midto late 1970s that the procedure began to gain recognition in the United States2 Most of the credit for popularizing arthroscopic meniscec-