Sonography in the detection of meniscal injuries of the knee: evaluation in cadavers.

We evaluated the ability of high-resolution, real-time sonography to identify and characterize artificially produced lesions in the menisci in human cadaveric knee specimens. In total, 20 lesions created in 10 specimens from five knees were prepared and examined sonographically. Four different types of lesions were created: eight vertical concentric tears, four horizontal tears, four vertical radial tears, and four complex lesions including displaced or amputated meniscal edges. All 20 (100%) of the lesions were visualized sonographically. The vertical concentric tears were the easiest to locate and identify, and appeared as highly echogenic lines in the menisci. Tears of this type as small as 2 mm could be visualized. The vertical radial tears were the most difficult to visualize, and no lesions of this type smaller than 5 mm could be seen. Our study shows that under optimal experimental conditions, sonography is capable of reliably demonstrating even small meniscal tears. On this basis, we believe that further clinical studies of the efficacy of meniscal sonography are both reasonable and necessary.