Why a meniscectomy fails.

The clinical and roentgenological data on 30 patients with unsatisfactory recovery or recurrent symptoms after meniscectomy were analysed. The meniscectomy was regarded as having been the wrong choice of therapy in four patients and as ineffective therapy in 11. In 10 patients other knee lesions dominated postoperatively, in three the recovery was delayed for no obvious reason but the symptoms slowly disappeared, and in the remaining two patients a degenerative osteoarthritis developing some time after the meniscectomy was regarded as the cause of the recurring symptoms. We conclude that with an optimal clinical and arthrographic analysis and with careful operative tecnique as many as 17 arthrotomies (out of 30 primary and 13 reoperations) in the material presented could have been avoided.