Today's News

Thursday, February 13, 1997

Partial meniscectomy aids patients 60 and older

Partial lateral meniscectomy has been found to provide acceptable results in patients 60 years and older who have limited degenerative changes in the knee.

Thirty-five patients who underwent the procedure were available for follow-up (average 36.8 months). Group A had no damage worse than Grade II and underwent arthroscopic partial meniscectomy only. Group B had Grade III and Grade IV damage and underwent arthroscopic debridement as well as partial meniscectomy.

The study, to be presented in scientific paper 56 Thursday, found that the overall failure rate was 13.9 percent, but 86 percent of the patients reported their overall assessment of their knee as improved. Ninety-four percent of the patients in Group A and 80 percent of patients in Group B rated their knee as improved. Gene R. Barrett, MD, Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center, will present the paper.

The authors of the paper said that "while patients in Group B tended to have less favorable results, we feel that this procedure is warranted and that both Group A and B did significantly benefit from partial meniscectomy."

Although four patients-two in each group-experienced significant loss of range of motion, all but one of these patients reported that the overall assessment of their knee was improved and that pain, swelling and walking was improved.

Twenty percent of the patients in Group B had a significant progression in degenerative arthritis, compared to 12.5 percent in Group A. "This observation is not surprising, considering that all of these patients were over 60 years of age (average age 64.9 years) at the time of arthroscopy and given the fact that all of them had moderate degenerative changes prior to arthroscopy," the authors said. "All of the patients with this significant increase in degenerative arthritis did, however, report an overall improvement in the knee and improvement in the amount of pain and swelling."

Co-authors of the study are Brian P. Johnson, MD; Stephen H. Treacy, MD; and Cynthia G Ruff, MS, all of Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center.