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Review
. 2012 Jan;36(1):43-50.
doi: 10.1007/s00264-011-1364-x. Epub 2011 Oct 4.

Clinical outcome after microfracture of the knee: a meta-analysis of before/after-data of controlled studies

Lukas Negrin  1 , Florian Kutscha-Lissberg, Gerald Gartlehner, Vilmos Vecsei
Affiliations
Review

Clinical outcome after microfracture of the knee: a meta-analysis of before/after-data of controlled studies

Lukas Negrin et al. Int Orthop. 2012 Jan.

Abstract

Purpose: The aims of this study were to systematically review the medical literature, in order to find controlled studies about microfracture in the treatment of patients with full-thickness cartilage lesions of the knee, to statistically combine these studies in order to determine a best estimate of the average treatment effect, and to gather information to detect cartilage-specific and patient-specific factors that might have an influence on the clinical outcome.

Methods: We searched four electronic databases for controlled clinical trials or controlled prospective observational studies. We pooled before/after-data of study arms using the term microfracture.

Results: We calculated an overall best estimate of 1.106, with [0.566; 1.646] as 95% confidence interval of the mean standardized treatment effect for a representative patient population.

Conclusions: Our meta-analysis revealed a clinically relevant improvement of the postoperative clinical status as compared to the preoperative status. An increase of 22 overall KOOS points may provide a rough estimate for the mean expected treatment effect achieved by microfracturing.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Selection process of eligible studies
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Forest plot of paired standardized mean difference
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Forest plot of paired standardized mean difference (without paper of Gudas et al.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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