No abstract

Although we did manage to detect statistically significant differences mainly in radiographic results between the two groups, this situation did not appear to influence the clinical outcome of the patients, however. The fact that most of the patients had good or excellent results at an average follow-up of 4.5 years suggests that HTO does not have a significant negative effect on later TKA.

Our aim was to evaluate the association between VDR polymorphisms and calcaneal Stiffness Index (SI) with stress fractures in a case control study including male military personnel. Thirty- two patients with stress fractures were matched with 32 uninjured healthy volunteers (controls), by gender, age, height, body weight, and level of physical activity. The two groups were genotyped for the FokI, BsmI, ApaI, and TaqI polymorphisms of the VDR gene with PCR-RFLP method. In addition, calcaneal SI was measured by heel quantitative ultrasound in both groups. Data were analyzed by chi-squared test and logistic regression analysis. The f allele was significantly more frequent in patients than in controls (p=0.013), while the B allele showed such a tendency without reaching statistical significance (p=0.052). Among the entire cohort, a 2.7-fold and a 2.0-fold increase in risk of stress fractures was associated with the f and B alleles (OR, 2.7, 95% CI, 1.2–5.9; p=0.014 and OR, 2.0, 95% CI, 1.0–4.1; p=0.053, respectively). No statistically significant association was found between the incidence of stress fractures and t or a alleles. Decreased T-scores were also associated with the presence of f and B alleles. Mean values of T-scores of SI were statistically significantly lower in patients than in controls (p=0.018). These results suggest that the FokI and BsmI polymorphisms of the VDR gene could be associated with increased risk of stress fractures among military personnel. Moreover, a low calcaneal SI could represent a measurable index of this increased risk.

In this study, we aim to evaluate the arthroscopic findings of meniscal bucket handle tears and to correlate them with the proposed MR imaging signs of meniscal bucket handle tears suggested in the literature. Thirty-six patients who had a diagnosis of bucket handle tear in arthroscopy, in either medial or lateral meniscus, were included in our study (32 males and 4 females). Meniscal tears were evaluated in arthroscopy according to Dandy's classification. The MRIs were retrospectively analyzed regarding the following findings: absence of bow tie sign, presence of double posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) sign, double anterior horn sign, flipped meniscus sign, disproportional posterior horn sign, and fragment within the intercondylar region. Locked types I and II fragment of medial meniscus and half-length, whole-width and whole length-half-width fragment of lateral meniscus in arthroscopy were basically correlated with fragment within the intercondylar notch and absent bow tie signs in MRI. We did not find the double PCL sign in any of the patients with a lateral meniscal bucket handle tear. The most common signs in MR images of meniscal bucket handle tears were the fragment in the notch sign and the absent bow tie sign. They were observed with equal frequency of 88.8%. The presence of double PCL sign, double anterior horn sign, flipped meniscus sign, disproportional posterior horn sign were less common (41.66, 33, 25, and 27.7%, respectively). We conclude that the presence of at least two of the six MRI signs should be regarded as highly suggestive for bucket handle tears of menisci.