correlation of clinical, mri and arthroscopic findings in diagnosing meniscus and ligament injuries at knee joint: a prospective study

Objective: The purpose of this study was to correlate clinical, MRI, and arthroscopic findings in diagnosing ligament and meniscus tears in knee joint injuries. Materials and Methods: Our study included 20 patients in the age range of 11-60 years who were referred to radiology department for MRI of knee joint following injury to the knee. Prior to MRI, a detailed history, clinical, and local examination was done in all the subjects. MRI was carried out on 1.5 Tesla MR Machine and the standard protocol consisted of fat-suppressed PD (TE 45, TR 2800) in axial, sagittal, and coronal planes, T2W (TE 80, TR 4000) in sagittal plane and T1W (TE 11, TR 495) in sagittal plane. All the patients underwent arthroscopy by an orthopedic surgeon. Results: MR had 100% sensitivity and NPV of diagnosing ACL tears in this study. Clinical examination had sensitivity of 88% and NPV 75% in diagnosing ACL injuries. There was high NPV of MR examination (96%) in diagnosing meniscus tear while the PPV of MR examination was low (71%). These values were low in case of clinical examination. Conclusions: MRI is a useful non-invasive modality having high diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, and negative predictive value making it a very reliable screening test for diagnosing internal derangements.