The study we just published in the The American Journal of Sports Medicine looks at contact pressure in a knee during simulated gait after a medial meniscal root tear.
I started planning this study back in 2017 — unfortunately, we had delays due to COVID and staffing changes in our biomechanics lab. Nevertheless, we made it to the finish line and showed that meniscal root tears do significantly increase contact pressure as contact area is reduced, which was not a surprise.
What was most interesting to me was the variability between different knees. If we can sort out which patients do okay without surgery to repair a root and which patients’ knees will fail despite surgery, we can individualize treatment.
A recent study from Aaron Krych, MD at the Mayo Clinic highlights how catastrophic meniscal root tears are to the knee: [53% had had a total knee replacement and at a minimum 10-year follow-up, 37 of 39 living patients (95%) had failed nonoperative treatment.]
Read the study “Medial Meniscus Posterior Root Tears Lead to Changes in Joint Contact Mechanics at Low Flexion Angles During Simulated Gait” in The American Journal of Sport Medicine.