In sports and orthopedics, a tear of a meniscus is said to be a crack of one or more of the fibrocartilage strips in the knee known as menisci. A study claims that around 84% of children who are 18 and younger seemed to have had effective clinical results during an eight year follow-up to mend a torn meniscus simultaneously as reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

The study discovered that the effectiveness of the meniscus repair appeared to rely on whether the tear kind was said to be easy, compound or a ‘displaced bucket-handle’. In the study, around 99 patients who were 18 or younger appeared to have experienced a meniscus repair during the time of an ACL reconstruction between 1990 and 2005. By and large, patients apparently encompassed a 74 percent success rate of their meniscus tear.

Aaron Krych, chief resident, MD, Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn, commented, “We have a wealth of information regarding adults who have a meniscus tear repaired at the time of ACL reconstruction, but there was very little data regarding the pediatric population. To our knowledge this is the largest study reported on the pediatric population. These knee injuries are common in kids that play football, wrestling, and soccer.”

Patients with simple tears like one chief tear supposedly had an 84 percent effectual repair rate. The success rate is said to have reduced to roughly 59 percent for displaced bucket-handle tears and approximately 57 percent for complex tears. Two years following surgery, these patients seemed to have had a freedom from failure rate of about 90.9 percent; nevertheless, subsequent to 8 years, the rate seemed to decline to around 76.8 percent.

In assessing knee function such as limp, locking, instability, pain, swelling and trouble in climbing stairs, the patients supposedly progressed from a median score of 48, in a range of 38-70 prior to surgery to 90, range 52-100 post surgery.

Ranking the sporting activity level of patients on a scale of 0 – 10, with 10 being national elite competitive sports, and 0 being incapability to carry out every day activities, patients appeared to perk up their activity level considerably to around 6.2 from a 1.9.

The study was presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s Specialty Day in New Orleans.