Symptoms and level of sports activity in patients awaiting arthroscopy for meniscal lesions of the knee.

Thirty-six patients who had symptoms suggestive of lesions of the meniscus of the knee were put on a waiting list for arthroscopy. Patients who had a locked knee, had had more than two episodes of locking, or had unrelieved swelling were given preference on the waiting list and were not included in the study. By the time of admission to the hospital for elective arthroscopy, six to twenty-four months after being placed on the waiting list, none of the thirty-six patients had worse symptoms: four had no change in symptoms (although two of these had stopped or reduced their sports activity), nine had no symptoms (but six of these no longer participated in sports), and the remaining twenty-three had partial relief of symptoms (but seventeen of the twenty-three no longer participated in sports or had reduced their activity). Four patients remained unable to work. Only two of the twenty-seven who had engaged in sports before they had symptoms resumed their normal sports activity. By the time of admission to the hospital, fourteen patients had decided not to go ahead with the arthroscopy; eight of these had decided to give up sports indefinitely. Of the twenty-two patients who had an arthroscopy, a meniscal abnormality was found in twelve. In two of these, a healed meniscal lesion was found.