2019, Vol. 2, Issue 1, Part A

Materials and Methods: In accordance with PRISMA standards, a meta-analysis and systematic review were performed. This study was conducted at the Department of Radio-Diagnosis, I-care Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Haldia, West Bengal, India from March 2018 to February 2019. We compiled this data set from research that compared the efficacy of magnetic resonance imaging for meniscal tear detection to that of arthroscopy, the gold standard. Sixty patients who had arthroscopy and MRI were also the subjects of a prospective study that supplemented the available literature. In order to determine diagnostic accuracy, we computed sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV.

Results: In 38 out of 60 patients (40 males and 20 females with an average age of 32.5 ± 10.2 years), meniscal tears were confirmed by arthroscopy. Of these tears, 34 were successfully diagnosed by MRI, with just 4 false negatives and 3 false positives. Overall diagnosis accuracy was 90.0%, sensitivity was 89.5%, specificity was 91.3%, PPV was 91.9%, and NPV was 88.0%, all from the combined study of literature and local patient data. The accuracy of diagnosing medial meniscus tears was higher than lateral tears.

Conclusion: As a dependable preoperative tool, MRI shows great diagnostic accuracy in diagnosing meniscal tears. There are some little differences, though, and that just goes to show how useful arthroscopy is as a last diagnostic tool. MRI is a powerful tool that can help doctors make better decisions, especially when dealing with patients who complain of knee pain and other mechanical symptoms.