My son was diagnosed with a condition called osteochondritis dissecans of the knee a little over a year ago. The doctor told us to wait and see if it got worse. In the meantime, my son wasn’t able to play soccer for many months. Finally, after about 10 months, the doctor decided to operate and after recuperation, my son was fine. But he lost all that activity time, which is a big part of his social life. Shouldn’t the doctor have operated sooner if he was going to anyway?

A condition like osteochondritis dissecans of the knee is puzzling to doctors. The condition occurs when the blood supply to bone cells is disrupted and the doctors don’t understand why this happens.

As with many medical conditions and disorders, there are different ways to approach treatment of osteochondritis dissecans. Doctors are divided as to whether it should be treated conservatively (limited movement, anti-inflammatory medications, physical therapy) or surgery. Of course, surgery is a serious procedure, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Therefore, doctors usually prefer to try conservative treatments before suggesting surgery.

Unfortunately, the conservative treatments don’t always work and then surgery does become necessary. Research is on-going to see if there are ways to tell ahead of time which patients would be more likely to respond to conservative treatment and who may benefit from going straight to surgery.