DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING FOR MENISCAL TEARS, TAKING ARTHROSCOPY AS THE GOLD STANDARD
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52764/jms.25.33.4.3Keywords:
Meniscal Injuries; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Arthroscopy; Knee Joint; Diagnostic Accuracy; Sensitivity and Specificity; Medial Meniscus; Lateral MeniscusAbstract
Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in detecting meniscal injuries, with arthroscopy as the gold standard.
Materials and Methods: We conducted this prospective observational study at Khyber Teaching Hospital from August 2024 to May 2025. A total of 263 adults, aged between 20 and 60 years, with symptoms suggestive of meniscal pathology, underwent MRI followed by arthroscopic confirmation. Diagnostic accuracy was evaluated using a 2×2 table to calculate diagnostic metrics for the medial and lateral meniscus separately. Statistical significance was assessed, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed.
Results: Of 263 patients, 76.8% were male; the average age was 30 ± 4.32 years. MRI detected meniscal tears in 65.0% of patients, while arthroscopy confirmed them in 73.4%. For medial meniscal injuries, MRI showed a sensitivity of 60.9%, specificity of 44.9%, PPV of 68.4%, NPV of 37.0%, and diagnostic accuracy of 55.5%. For lateral meniscal injuries, sensitivity was 55.6%, specificity 95.6%, positive predictive value 66.7%, negative predictive value 93.1%, and diagnostic accuracy 90.1%. ROC analysis indicated an area under the curve of 52.9% for medial and 75.6% for lateral meniscus tears.
Conclusion
MRI demonstrates greater diagnostic accuracy and specificity in detecting lateral meniscal tears compared to medial tears. Due to lower sensitivity and specificity for medial meniscal injuries, arthroscopy remains crucial for a definitive diagnosis, especially in symptomatic patients with negative or inconclusive MRI results.
Keywords: Meniscal Injuries; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Arthroscopy; Knee Joint; Diagnostic Accuracy; Sensitivity and Specificity; Medial Meniscus; Lateral Meniscus
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Aftab Ali, Abbas Ali, Rao Erbaz Hassan, Nasimat Ali Khan, Waqar Ali, Wajid Ali
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All articles published in the Journal of Medical Sciences (JMS) are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under the CC BY 4.0 license, author(s) retain the ownership of the copyright publishing rights without restrictions for their content, and allow others to copy, use, print, share, modify, and distribute the content of the article even for commercial purposes as long as the original authors and the journal are properly cited. No permission is required from the author/s or the publishers for this purpose. Appropriate attribution can be provided by simply citing the original article. The corresponding author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors, a worldwide license to JMS and its licensees in all forms, formats, and media (whether known now or created in the future), The corresponding author must certify and warrant the authorship and proprietorship and should declare that he/she has not granted or assigned any of the article’s rights to any other person or body.
The corresponding author must compensate the journal for any costs, expenses, or damages that the JMS may incur as a result of any breach of these warranties including any intentional or unintentional errors, omissions, copyright issues, or plagiarism. The editorial office must be notified upon submission if an article contains materials like text, pictures, tables, or graphs from other copyrighted sources. The JMS reserves the right to remove any images, figures, tables, or other content, from any article, whether before or after publication, if concerns are raised about copyright, license, or permissions and the authors are unable to provide documentation confirming that appropriate permissions were obtained for publication of the content in question.
