The Epidemiology of Meniscus Injury

Abstract

Meniscus surgery is one of the most commonly performed orthopedic procedures worldwide. Modifiable risk factors for meniscus injury include body mass index, participation in athletics and occupation. Nonmodifiable risk factors include age, sex, lower extremity alignment, discoid meniscus, ligamentous laxity, and biconcave tibial plateau. Conditions commonly associated with meniscal injury are osteoarthritis, anterior cruciate ligament injury, and tibial plateau fractures. Tear type and location vary by patient age and functional status. Surgical management of meniscus injury is typically cost-effective in terms of quality-adjusted life years. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of meniscal injury epidemiology by summarizing tear types and locations, associated conditions, and factors that increase the risk for meniscal injury. The economic burden of meniscus injury and strategies to prevent injury to the meniscus are also reviewed.

Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis Assessment in Emerging and Advanced Pre-Clinical Meniscus Repair Strategies: A Review

“…The quantification of protein biomarkers, as a means of detecting specific types of meniscal injuries, has more recently become an area of active investigation with the popularization of sophisticated multiplexing technologies such as Luminex, which allow nanoscale detection of robust sets of soluble protein markers. A meniscus injury is linked to the development of PTOA ( Kennedy et al, 2020 ; Sherman et al, 2020 ; Tarafder et al, 2020 ; Adams et al, 2021 ). As such, the events that occur after traumatic injury or degenerative changes in the meniscus that govern the progression of OA are regulated at the molecular level.…”

“…Initially, the meniscus was considered to be vestigial tissue, which can simply be removed surgically upon major injury, as a means of alleviating pain and restoring function to the knee joint ( Chivers and Howitt, 2009 ; McNulty and Guilak, 2015 ). However, it is now known that the absence of, or injury to, meniscal tissue significantly increases the risk of post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) ( Badlani et al, 2013 ; Chang and Brophy, 2020 ; Rai et al, 2020 ; Adams et al, 2021 ; Bedrin et al, 2021 ). Indeed, according to a recent 2020 epidemiological study of young adults, approximately 13% of patients with meniscus injuries develop OA by 18 years post-injury, whereas only about 3% of patients with uninjured knees developed the disease ( Snoeker et al, 2020 ).…”

Efficacy of Electromyographic Biofeedback in Muscle Recovery after Meniscectomy in Soccer Players

“…It has been observed that the learning that takes place with EMG-BF not only makes it easier to acquire greater awareness of the activity of the muscle, but also improves its involuntary activity [9,14]. This is of the greatest significance because it makes it possible to improve the outlook for future injuries, in a context such as soccer in which knee injuries are very common [22,23,33,37].…”

“…One of the classic scenarios that can emerge while playing soccer is a meniscal lesion [32][33][34], which may present with varying degrees of severity depending on the damage caused to its structure and whether it occurs in the medial or the lateral meniscus [35]. There is often a substantial alteration in the structure of the meniscus requiring surgical intervention, and it is one of the most common traumatological procedures in the general population [36], specifically in soccer [33,37].…”

Meniscus Tear: Pathology, Incidence, and Management

“…Several factors are risk factors for meniscal tears, increasing the likelihood of developing meniscal tears. The non-modifiable risk factors for meniscal tears include sex, where the incidence in men is 2.5 times more than in women [ 11 ]. Meniscal tears are more in individuals with a biconcave tibial plateau, a discoid meniscus, those with lower extremity alignment, and those with ligamentous laxity.…”