抄録
Early changes in knee osteoarthritis (OA) have been investigated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In most reports, meniscus changes have been discussed. We studied the records of 12 cases of cartilage defect at the medial femoral condyle without meniscal tear and early osteoarthritis of the knee. The purpose of our analysis was to compare them with 15 cases of meniscal tear without cartilage defect.
The study included 12 patients (10 women, 2 men) with cartilage defect (ages 42-61 years), and 15(10 women, 5 men) with meniscal tear (ages 45-61 years). All patients had relatively early OA changes (Kellgren grade 2) at the medial side of the knee on radiographs. Ligament injuries by trauma were excluded. We measured the medial meniscus (MM) displacement ratio on MRI, and femoro-tibial angles (FTA) and Mikulicz line on radiographs. MM displacement ratio was the length of MM lesion that protruded from the edge of the tibial medial joint surface to the MM width. We examined the relationship among the parameters between the cartilage defect groups and meniscal tear groups.
The MM displacement ratio and FTA were smaller, and the Mikulicz line was more central at the tibial plateau in the cartilage defect cases without tear than in the cases with meniscal tear. Significant differences were observed between the two groups for all parameters.
We believe a cartilage defect at the medial femoral condyle is an important and interesting lesion in early osteoarthritis of the knee.
