Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is considered safe for diagnosis of meniscus injury, having accuracy as high as 80% to 100%. However, it is found that there are some false positive and false negative in the clinic.
OBJECTIVE: Through assessment of menisci injuries of the knee using magnetic resonance imaging and arthroscopy, to investigate MRI manifestation in different types of meniscal injuries.
METHODS: A study from January 2003 to December 2008 was performed in 212 patients with knee injury undergoing preoperative MRI. Radiograph was read by physicians who had a senior professional title from radiology and orthopaedics departments, and meniscus damage and damage morphology were predicted. Arthroscopy was conducted by chief physician. Meniscus damage during surgery was considered as gold standards. The accuracy of them was compared. The statistics of accuracy of MRI diagnosis was gathered.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Totally 212 patients and 230 knees were included, and a total of 215 knees of meniscus injury were described by MRI diagnosis and 213 knees of meniscus injury were proven by arthroscopy. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of MRI diagnosis of meniscus injury respectively were 93.5%, 64.7%, 93.0%. It is found that the sensitivity of MRI diagnosis of bucket-handle damage is high. MRI is easy to miss diagnosis in a light meniscus posterior horn tear, and resuts are more false positive in lateral meniscus injury. It needs arthroscope operation or further surgery in some condition such as grade Ⅲ type injury, meniscus displacement after injury and articular capsule separation, which indicates instable meniscus.