Study Challenges Traditional Meniscus Repair

How should surgeons treat a horizontal meniscus tear? They often perform a meniscectomy—the partial removal of the meniscus—based on the belief that repair of the meniscus itself is not effective for tears of this type. To investigate the issue more closely, Centerix Orthopaedics, Inc. sponsored a literature review of clinical studies concerned with the repair of horizontal tears.

The study reviewed 16, 000 articles and found nine studies that reported results of horizontal cleavage tear repairs. The studies reported on 98 repairs. The researchers used reoperation as the criterion for treatment failure and found that 77 of the repairs had apparently been successful. This resulted in a success rate of 77.8%.

“This study demonstrates that meniscus repair can be successful and suggests that, whenever possible, repair should be considered for patients with horizontal cleavage tears, ” said orthopaedic surgeon Peter Kurzweil, M.D., primary author of the study. “I have seen the benefits of repair in my own practice and hope that this analysis may lead more physicians to consider treatment that preserves the meniscus.”

In arthroscopic surgery a surgeon treats the damaged joint through small incisions using specialized tools and guided by a tiny camera. Meniscus surgery is the most common arthroscopic procedure in the United States, with roughly one million performed annually.

Centerix Orthopaedics Inc. is based in Menlo Park, California, and develops surgical tools for use in arthroscopic procedures. It was founded in 2010.