Magnetic resonance (MR) may be helpful in evaluating patients who have had previous
knee surgery and who present with persistent or recurrent symptoms. MRI interpretation of
the post operative knee is more difficult than evaluation of the unoperated knee. The purpose
of this study is to determine the efficacy of MRI in evaluating post operative meniscus, detecting
recurrent meniscal tear and complication.
MR imaging was done on 35 post operative menisci. Fifteen of them were asymptomatic
patients, control group, and the other 20 cases are symptomatic cases. Repair in 5 patients,
partial meniscectomy 17 patients and total meniscectomy 13 patients. Arthroscopy was done
to 22 cases that had been operated upon with partial meniscectomy or meniscal repair. The
two important MR sings for repeat meniscal tear are the presence of a grade 3 signal intensity
abnormality on the T2WI, and the presence of fluid within a line that extended to an articular
surface on T2-Wl. The resulting MR sensitivity was 75 %, specificity 90 %, and the overall
accuracy 81.8 %. The presence of a grade 3 signal intensity on intermediate- and TI-WI
did not reliably predict a tear. |
