Arthroscopic Findings of Isolated Meniscal Tears in Soldiers Younger Than 30 Years of Age / 대한스포츠의학회지

ABSTRACT

Meniscal tears are a common source of knee pain in military personnel. We aimed to investigate the arthroscopic findings of isolated meniscal tears in soldiers younger than 30 years of age. Between May 2011 and April 2014, a total of 36 soldiers with 37 knees who underwent arthroscopic surgeries for isolated meniscal tears were included in this study. All patients were male soldiers and average age was 22 years (range, 19 to 30 years). Thirty patients (83%) were identified as having trauma in sports activity or military training, but no definite trauma was documented in six patients. We analyzed whether medial or lateral meniscus, the location and type of tear according to the arthroscopic findings. The incidence of meniscal tears was nearly same for both knees (right 18 and left 19). Twenty-six of 37 tears (70%) were found in the lateral meniscus and 11 (30%) in the medial meniscus. Twenty-five tears (68%) were located in mid body and traumatic vertical type tears (65%) were more common than degenerative horizontal type tears (35%). Although our study based on relatively small cohort, isolated meniscal tears in young soldiers were usually resulted from trauma such as sports or ranger training and commonly located in lateral meniscus. Regarding the type of tear, traumatic vertical type was more common than degenerative horizontal type.