J Korean Knee Soc.  2006 Dec;18(2):214-218.

Comparison of Arthroscopy and Routine MRI About Cartilage Lesion in Knee Joint

• Lee KB
• Koh SH
• Kwon DJ
• Seo KN
• Rhee NK

Abstract

PURPOSE
The cartilage lesions of routine MRI (no cartilage-specific image sequences) compared with those of arthroscopy for detecting how much we can predict.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We made a retrospective study of 53 patients with cartilage lesions of medial femoral condyle in the knee arthroscopy from Nov. 2003 to Jan. 2006. We analyzed the extent of agreement in cartilage lesions between arthroscopy and routine MRI using modified Outerbridge classification.
RESULTS
All patients were categorized by modified Outerbridge Grade I~IV. In arthroscopy, 3, 4, 24, 22 cases were reported in each category: on routine MRI, 3, 10, 12, 23 cases were reported in each category and there were 5 normal cases. The sensitivity of cartilage lesions on MRI was high (90.6%), however, the agreement of those was low (K=0.24). We found 24 cases (45.2%) that MRI levels and arthroscopy levels were matched. We found 29 cases (54.7%) that those two levels were not matched.
CONCLUSION
It is important to make a close inspection of chondral surfaces even in routine MRI. And cartilage lesions in routine MRI should be considered as those of higher grade in arthroscopy.

Keyword

Knee; Cartilage lesion; Arthroscopy; MRI

MeSH Terms

Arthroscopy*
Cartilage*
Classification
Humans
Knee Joint*
Knee*
Magnetic Resonance Imaging*
Retrospective Studies