Wrist arthroscopy appeared in the 1970s, following the development of arthroscopy of more readily accessible joints. It was developed initially as a diagnostic tool, but because of the progress of other investigation tools such CT scan, artho-CT scan, and MRI, its diagnostic use subsequently decreased. In the past 15 years, wrist arthroscopy has become more of a treatment tool. Soon enough, it will become difficult to contemplate the treatment of wrist lesions without arthroscopy.
In 1972, Watanabe was the first to introduce an arthroscope in a wrist, following his initial work on knee arthroscopy published in 1969.
But is mainly Hempfling in Germany (1983) and Wipple in the US (1985) who really started to use wrist arthroscopy with a diagnostic purpose. During the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, wrist arthroscopy developed throughout the world, mainly for the diagnosis of intra-articular lesions. Ostermann in the US, Pederzini in Italy, Bour and Saffar in France were the pioneers of this technique.
Since the 1990s, the true surgical arthroscopic techniques have considerably developed, with Luchetti in Italy, Doy in Japan, Geissler in the US, Lindau in Sweden, De Smet in Belgium, Ho in China, Stanley, Goddard and Yanni in England and Dumontier, Fontes and Mathoulin in France.