LATERAL MENISCAL VARIANT WITH ABSENCE OF THE POSTERIOR CORONARY LIGAMENT

We reviewed the cases of 3468 patients who had had arthroscopy of the knee between January 1976 and December 1988. Twenty-six patients (0.8 per cent) had a partial or a complete discoid lateral meniscus, and seven (0.2 per cent) had the Wrisberg-variant-type lateral meniscus. Of the seven patients, six had operative stabilization of the meniscus and one had a partial lateral meniscectomy because of an irreparable complex tear. Subjective, objective, and radiographic evaluations were performed on the patients who had had stabilization of the meniscus. According to the scale of Tegner and Lysholm, the result was excellent in four patients, good in one, and fair in one. None of the six patients had a tear of the sutured meniscus after an average follow-up of thirty-two months (range, twenty-four to forty months). Two patients had progressive symptoms attributable to osteoarthrosis, but the changes in the articular cartilage had been present at the time of the index procedure. None of the seven Wrisberg-variant-type menisci demonstrated a true discoid shape of the meniscus. We therefore classified this lesion as a lateral meniscal variant with absence of the posterior coronary ligament.