Mohamed Muzaffer G, Sadhanandham Shrinuvasan, Ranganathan Chidambaram
BACKGROUND Knee injuries are very common due to sports and repetitive activities. Accurate evaluation of the knee injuries is very essential for the proper management and outcome. The objective of this study is to correlate the findings of MRI in cases of knee injuries with arthroscopy. MATERIALS AND METHODS This is a prospective study of 100 patients with history of knee complaints who are referred to Department of Radiodiagnosis, SLIMS, Pondicherry for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) followed by Arthroscopy whenever needed. MRI images are studied for evidence of injuries to the cruciate, menisci ligaments, collateral ligaments, tendons around the knee joint, fluid collections, bony contusions and soft tissue injuries, then these findings are confirmed with arthroscopy. The patients were chosen for the study by a process of purposive random sampling and the data was analysed for sensitivity, specificity, predictive values and by Kappa statistics. RESULTS Out of 100 cases, 70 are males and 30 are females. Right knee is commonly involved compared to left accounting for 55 cases. Young patients suffered maximum number of knee injuries which comprised predominantly of patients in 21-40 years age group with mean age of 30.5 yrs. The most common complaint of patients is pain and instability. Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury is the most common injury followed by medial meniscus injury. CONCLUSION Accurate evaluation of knee injuries is very crucial for the proper management. MRI is the primary modality of choice to investigate all cases of knee complaints, since it is very accurate in detecting both intra and extra articular pathology. Both MRI and arthroscopy have limitations as individual modalities and it can be overcome by combining both modalities when clinically indicated.
