30. LIVE from AAOS with Dr. Brian Waterman: The Cost of Meniscus Surgery

We’re coming to you live from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting in Las Vegas, our largest orthopaedic conference. This year, over 20,000 orthopedic professionals gathered at the AAOS meeting to take part. The educational program is comprised of instructional course lectures, video theater, live surgeries, podium presentations and research posters.

Over the next several episodes we’re going to be reviewing five sports medicine posters that were presented at the AAOS meeting. On this podcast we try to review the most updated literature on different sports medicine topics. So, reviewing some of the posters that were just presented at AAOS is particularly exciting for us because this is very new data. So new that most of this data has not even been published yet.

We’re joined by Dr. Brian Waterman to get his take on these poster presentations.

Dr. Brian Waterman is a board-certified, orthopedic surgeon specializing in adult and pediatric sports medicine, cartilage restoration and joint preservation, complex knee surgery and shoulder and elbow care. He is the Chief of sports medicine at Wake Forest University and the Director of their sports medicine fellowship program. Dr. Waterman completed his orthopedic surgery residency at William Beaumont Army Medical Center and served 13 years in the U.S. Army, earning multiple honors including the Meritorious Service Medal and Army Commendation Medal.

Dr. Waterman then went on to complete a sports medicine fellowship at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He is the team physician for Wake Forest University, the Winston-Salem Dash, U.S. Ski and Snowboard and several local high schools.

Dr. Waterman is an associate editor for the Arthroscopy Journal and is on the Board of Directors for Arthroscopy Association of North America. Given his extensive experience with orthopedic research, Dr. Waterman led the sports medicine poster tour at AAOS this year, so we’re looking forward to getting his unique perspective on these poster presentations.

Featured Poster:
Management of Meniscal Tears: Costs and Timing of Surgery and was presented by Liz Matzkin and her team at Mass General Brigham.

The purpose of this new study was to describe the costs associated with treatment of meniscus tears in the two-year period following diagnosis and examine the relationship between patient characteristics and timing of surgery.
They divided patients into “nonsurgical”, “early surgery” performed within 3 months of diagnosis, and “late surgery” beyond 3 months. They found that costs were significantly lower in the nonsurgical group but that highest costs were associated with late surgery, advocating for surgery to be performed earlier.

The authors also reported that higher utilization of PT and medication in the three- month period post-diagnosis was also associated with a reduced likelihood of eventual surgery.