Johnsen MB, et al. –In a cohort of relatively young patients with meniscal tears, researchers studied the connection between smoking and early or more established knee osteoarthritis (OA). The study sample consisted of 620 participants from the Knee Arthroscopy Cohort Southern Denmark (KACS) undergoing knee arthroscopy for a meniscal tear. In current smokers, the prevalence of early or more established knee OA was 37.7% and, in non-smokers, 45.0%. No link was found between current smoking and early or more established knee OA. Thus, there was no confirmation of the inverse association between smoking and knee OA suggested by previous studies. Meniscal tears, cartilage defects, and knee pain can be important knee OA markers and represent a different knee OA phenotype than previously studied in relation to smoking.