INCHEON, South Korea — A randomized controlled trial of physical therapy (PT) for pain relief in people with meniscal tear and osteoarthritis found no significant difference between sham and standard PT, but both showed slightly greater benefits than home-based exercise, according to a presentation at the World Congress on Osteoarthritis (OARSI) 2025 Annual Meeting.
The multisite Treatment of Meniscal Problems in OA (TeMPO) study enrolled 879 adults with meniscal tears and osteoarthritis, one third of whom were classified as having Kellgren-Lawrence grade 3 osteoarthritis. The participants, who had a mean age of 59 years, were randomly assigned to one of four arms: Self-administered, thrice-weekly, home-based strengthening exercises; the same home-based program but with biweekly motivational texts; the home-based exercises plus standard PT involving 12 visits over 3 months with a physical therapist; or home-based exercise plus a sham PT program that used zero energy ultrasound, as well as massage and manipulation distant from the knee joint.
At 3 months, all four groups showed around a 17- to 20-point reduction in their Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) pain scores, with a 2- to 3-point greater reduction in the standard and sham PT arms compared with the home-based exercise-only arms.
“The primary outcome result of the trial is that we do not observe a clinically important or statistically significant difference,” study author Jeffrey N. Katz, MD, MS, professor of medicine and orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School and professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, both in Boston, told OARSI 2025 attendees.
At 6 and 12 months, the difference between the home-based exercises and the PT interventions had increased slightly to around a 4- to 6-point difference in KOOS pain scores, which was still below the mi