News Notes
- The injury: The meniscus acts as a shock absorber and secondary stabilizer for the knee joint, helping to disperse force across the knee. Meniscus damage often results from twisting the knee while running or pivoting, but other risk factors include a previous injury, overuse, arthritis, obesity, and age.1-3
Common symptoms include swelling, stiffness, instability, and difficulty bending or straightening the knee.1 There are a various types and patterns2 of meniscus tears, for which several different treatment options exist.
- Treatment options:
- All-Inside Repair: All-inside repair is a modern, minimally invasive surgical approach that only requires a small incision for the surgeon to use arthroscopic tools, eliminating the need for "open" surgery. This technique can be used to treat many types of meniscal tears. Before its introduction, meniscus surgery typically involved removing all damaged tissue (a meniscectomy), which could cause additional damage, increase joint pressure, and lead to joint degeneration.4
- Advantages to All-Inside Repair: Repairing the meniscus, rather than performing a meniscectomy, helps maintain overall joint health4 and provides an anatomic repair that preserves surrounding tissue.5 Additionally, this approach preserves the knee’s cartilage by using very small incisions and sutures instead of plastic PEEK implants, helping restore range of motion and biomechanics while reducing the risk of neurovascular damage.5,6
- Meniscal Root Repair: This surgery is performed only when the end of the meniscus (the root) is torn away from its attachment site on the tibia. The root is reattached to the bone at its natural, or anatomic, site and fixed there using some type of device, such as suture.
It is important that the meniscus returns to its preinjury location. Not doing so may mean the meniscus does not fully come in contact with the bone (meaning it is not anatomically similar to an intact knee), which can lead to extrusion (when the meniscus is pushed outside where it is normally located), failure of the knee to distribute weight evenly, and increased strain on the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).7
The innovative Arthrex SutureLoc™ implant system is specifically designed to treat this injury. As the first knotless soft anchor designed for arthroscopic meniscal root repair, this system uses only suture — rather than metal implants or screws — for the repair.
- Inside-Out Repair: Although all-inside meniscal repair has become more popular, some surgeons prefer to use an inside-out repair approach, particularly for larger or more complex tears of the meniscus. Newer technology allows surgeons to perform this procedure in a minimally invasive manner.
- Patient Statistics:
- Meniscal surgeries are one of the most common orthopedic procedures, accounting for 17 of every 100,000 surgeries in the U.S.8
- Diagnosis of meniscal injuries is on the rise due to increased participation in sports and more advanced diagnostic methods.8
- More than 75% of patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis have known meniscal injuries.8
- More than 125,000 patients in the U.S. received Arthrex meniscal solutions as part of their treatment in 2024.
