Editorial Commentary: Defining Improvement After Arthroscopic Meniscal Surgery-How Much of a Difference Does a Difference Make?

Abstract

Patient-centered metrics including the minimal clinically important difference, substantial clinical benefit, and patient acceptable symptom state have been proposed to determine the clinical significance of patient-reported outcome scores. These values allow clinically meaningfully interpretation of changes in scores such that the degree of improvement (minimal clinically important difference and substantial clinical benefit) and satisfaction (patient acceptable symptom state) can be determined. When derived in the same study, these values allow analyses to be approached from the perspective of which patients are likely to respond to treatment and what level of improvement and satisfaction they might attain. Although limited to the sample from which they are derived, these metrics go beyond a mean value of an outcome score to provide a patient-centered perspective that informs the clinical significance of patient-reported outcome scores.