I am often asked by patients or friends how to treat osteophytes. This question is difficult for me to answer for a while. To answer this question, we must first figure out whether osteophytes need to be treated or not. What is osteophyte? Osteomalacia is a normal physiological and degenerative change in the human skeleton, a phenomenon of aging and degeneration of the bones. Just like people grow wrinkles on their skin as they age, bones have to grow growths. Many people have osteophytes, only some do not cause symptoms and do not call it a disease, it is just a manifestation of aging. The specific treatment for osteophytes should be different depending on the different areas of osteophytes that produce different conditions. The first thing to clarify is whether treatment is needed. If the nerve is compressed, the osteophyte that is compressing the nerve needs to be removed surgically. If the growth is growing into the joint, arthroscopic debridement or artificial joint replacement can be done.