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Reliability of clinical diagnosis in meniscal tears

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Abstract

This retrospective study was conducted to analyse the reliability of clinical diagnosis in meniscal tear injuries. All patients attending our clinic with knee pain from January 2003 to December 2004 underwent systematic and thorough clinical assessment. One hundred and fifty patients were clinically diagnosed to have meniscal tears. All these patients underwent therapeutic arthroscopic knee surgery. The clinical diagnosis was confirmed during this procedure. The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were calculated based on these arthroscopic findings. The accuracy of clinical diagnosis in our study was 88% for medial meniscal tears and 92% for lateral meniscal tears. The results of this study demonstrate that clinical diagnosis of meniscal tears is as reliable as the results published by other authors for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. We recommend the use of MRI for more doubtful, difficult and complex knee injuries.

Résumé

Cette étude rétrospective analyse la fiabilité du diagnostic clinique dans les lésions méniscales. De janvier 2003 à décembre 2004 tous les patients présentant des gonalgies ont eu un examen clinique minutieux. 150 avaient des signes de déchirure méniscale et ils ont eu une arthroscopie thérapeutique qui a permis de calculer l’exactitude, la sensibilité et la spécificité du diagnostic. L’exactitude était de 88% pour les lésions méniscales médiales et de 92% pour les lésions latérales. Les résultats montrent que le diagnostic clinique était aussi fiable que le diagnostic par IRM d’après des résultats publiés par d’autres auteurs.

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Correspondence to B. R. Mohan.

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Mohan, B.R., Gosal, H.S. Reliability of clinical diagnosis in meniscal tears. International Orthopaedics (SICO 31, 57–60 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-006-0131-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-006-0131-x

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