Meniscal tears of the knee: accuracy of detection with fast spin-echo MR imaging and arthroscopic correlation in 293 patients.

Abstract

To evaluate the accuracy of a magnetic resonance (MR) imaging strategy that uses primarily fast spin-echo (SE) sequences for the diagnosis of meniscal tears. The original clinical interpretations of MR images in 293 patients who underwent imaging for suspected internal derangement of a knee joint were correlated with results from subsequent arthroscopy. MR examination included a double-echo fast SE sequence as the only imaging in the sagittal plane. The sensitivity and specificity for 143 confirmed tears of the medial meniscus were 89% and 84%, respectively, while the values for 96 confirmed tears of the lateral meniscus were 72% and 93%. These values are within the ranges of values recently reported for imaging strategies relying predominantly on conventional SE sequences. Fast SE imaging of the knee can be an alternative to conventional SE imaging for the detection of meniscal tears.