ORIGINAL ARTICLE  SPORT INJURIES AND REHABILITATION 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2017 May;57(5):589-94

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.17.06132-1

Copyright © 2015 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

The accuracy of musculoskeletal ultrasound examination for the exploration of meniscus injuries in athletes

Simona MUREŞAN ¹, Mircea MUREŞAN ², Septimiu VOIDĂZAN ³, Radu NEAGOE ⁴ ✉

¹ Department of Physiology, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureş, Târgu Mureş, Romania; ² Department of Anatomy, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureş, Târgu Mureş, Romania; ³ Department of Epidemiology, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureş, Târgu Mureş, Romania; ⁴ Department of Surgery, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mureş, Târgu Mureş, Romania

BACKGROUND: Meniscus injuries represent a frequently occurring pathology in athletes and require an optimum diagnosis protocol. This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of ultrasound examination for the identification of meniscus injuries, in comparison with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), using the arthroscopy as reference.
METHODS: This prospective longitudinal comparative study included 45 athletes who were clinically examined by MRI and further, by arthroscopy, in a medical center dedicated to sport traumatology.
RESULTS: The conventional ultrasound exploration of the knee allowed the identification of a diverse pathology, presenting a sensitivity of 88.8% for the diagnosis of medial meniscus injuries and 70.0% for the lateral meniscus. The specificity was 77.7% for the medial meniscus and 96.0% for the identification of lateral meniscus injuries. Using MRI, a sensitivity of 69.4% was obtained for the medial meniscus and 75.0% for the lateral meniscus, with a specificity of 76.6% for the pathology of medial meniscus and 80.0% for the lateral meniscus. Statistical analysis, based on the comparison of ROC curves, did not show any significant difference between the two applied diagnostic techniques (P=0.061 for the medial meniscus and P=0.534 for the lateral meniscus).
CONCLUSIONS: The musculoskeletal ultrasound exploration of the knee joint, performed in a medical center with high addressability, by an experienced examiner, was able to identify the medial and lateral meniscus injuries with an accuracy comparable to that of MRI examination.

KEY WORDS: Meniscus - Wounds and injuries - Ultrasonography - Magnetic resonance imaging - Arthroscopy