Comparing participants from a randomized trial and screened non-participants: Implications for generalizability of surgery and exercise therapy in young adults with meniscal tears.

Purpose: To investigate the generalizability of the study population and treatment effects observed in a randomized controlled trial comparing a strategy of early surgery to a strategy of exercise therapy and patient education (with the option of later surgery) for young adults with meniscal tears, through comparison with a parallel clinical cohort. Methods: We compared patient characteristics of patients ( Results: Patients participating in the DREAM trial and the clinical cohort were, on average, similar in most patient characteristics and level of patient-reported symptoms at baseline, except for symptom duration, symptom onset and KOOS symptom subscale scores, where statistically significant differences were observed. Similar baseline to 12-month average KOOS Conclusions: Overall, both baseline characteristics and observed improvements of surgery and exercise therapy observed in the DREAM trial were largely comparable to those observed in the clinical cohort, suggesting that the DREAM trial results were generalizable to patients aged 18-40 years with meniscal tears observed in daily clinical practice. Level of Evidence: Level II.