MRI as an accurate tool for the diagnosis and characterization of different knee joint meniscal injuries

Background: The knee menisci are compound anatomical structures with important purposes within the knee. In the long term, meniscal losing results in high risk of developing degenerative osteoarthritis. MRI is an accurate and non-invasive diagnostic method for the knee injuries providing satisfactory guide for conservative treatment and guarding the patients from uncritical arthroscopy. Objective: This study aimed to detect the MRI accuracy in diagnosis of meniscal lesions compared to arthroscopy. Patients and methods: This study included 13 females and 17 males presented by pain, swelling, limitation of movement, in the duration from April 2015 to June 2016. All patients were subjected to MRI followed by arthroscopy. Results: The study revealed that specificity, sensitivity, NPV, PPV and accuracy, in MRI diagnosis of medial meniscal abnormal signals were 50%, 95.8%, 88.4%, 86.6%, and 90% respectively, whereas those for lateral meniscus signals were 84.6% 88.2%, 84.6%, 88.2% and 86.7% respectively. Conclusion: MRI of the knee will give the orthopedic surgeons ability to select suitable treatment and arthroscopic interference for their patients. MRI has high accuracy in meniscal tears diagnosis allowing accurate grading of them