Morphometric study of medial menisci of the adult knee joint

Knee joint is the largest articulation in the body. The condyles of the femur rest in unequal manner on the shallow concave surface of the tibia. The menisci are firmly attached to the intercondylar area of tibia and their outer edges are attached to fibrous capsule of the knee joint. Variation in thickness and width of menisci can determine the possibility and kind of injury. The size of the meniscus is related to its function, any procedure like meniscal replacement and regeneration techniques adopted in orthosurgeries must be accompanied by measurement techniques to determine meniscal size.

To analyze thickness, width, peripheral and inner border lengths, distance between anterior and posterior horns of adult medial menisci of right and left knee joints and to compare with that of meniscal parameters which are available in the literature.

For this study, 120 medial menisci from 60 adult human knees available in the Department of Anatomy, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belgaum were studied and analyzed.

Paired t-test with p<0.05 significance was applied for values expressed as Mean ± SD, Mean values of all parameters were high for left sided menisci but statistically significant higher difference was observed only for peripheral length values.

Peripheral length of medial menisci was more on the left sided knees. Other morphometric parameters of the medial menisci between right and left knees did not show any significant difference.