Diagnsostic Accuracy of Magnetic Resonance Imaging with Arthroscopy in the Diagnosis of Meniscal Tear

Abstract

Many clinical studies have been done to facilitate physicians in making accurate diagnoses of knee injuries. The knee injuries related to meniscaltear resulted in significant pain and disability to patient mobility. In the current study, the efficiency of clinical examination in contrast with MRI was examined in the diagnosis of a meniscaltearwith the help of the gold standard method, arthroscopy. All the patients with suggested arthroscopy were included in the study and enlisted from City care hospital, Latifabad, Hyderabad.The clinical examination conducted before the arthroscopy involved the following test such as Thessaly test, Apley test, and McMurray test. These results along with MRI were recorded in special forms. Finally, arthroscopy was carried out and results were mentioned as the definite diagnosis. To compare all the obtained results statistical analysis was performed by SPSS software(version 18; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). A total of 75 patients were considered. The average age was 32 years consisting of both male and female patients. All candidates had knee injuries due to different reasons i.e., trauma, twisting, and sports, respectively. The Arthroscopic study identified 34 meniscal tears, consisting of medial and lateral nature comprising longitudinal, bucket handle, transverse, radial, and oblique injuries. The comparison analysis of both MRI and arthroscopic results exhibited 1 false-negative and 1 false-positive case. Considering the McMurray test, 55 cases came out accurate in which 13 cases were considered as false positive and 10 cases as a false negative. The results of the Apley test showed 50 cases as accurate consisting of 13 cases as false-positive and 7 cases as a false negative. In the case of the Thessaly test, 67 cases showed accuracy with false negative and false positive as 3 and 5 cases, respectively. The statistical significance (P<0.05) results were obtained when Thessaly results were compared with Apley and McMurray test. The comparison analysis of MRI results with Thessaly test results resulted in a non-statistical significance value (P=0.151). It was found from the current study that the clinical examination conducted by a competent examiner has the same diagnostic power as that of MRI results. In the current study, the Thessaly test was also found amajor clinical test to diagnose the meniscal injury.