Partial meniscectomy is associated with increased risk of incident radiographic osteoarthritis and worsening cartilage damage in the following year

Roemer FW, Kwoh CK, Hannon MJ, Hunter DJ, Eckstein F, Grago J, Boudreau RM, Englund M, Guermazi A · European Radiology

Partial meniscectomy in the preceding year was recorded in 4.4% of knees that developed radiographic osteoarthritis and in none of the knees that did not. All 31 knees with a partial meniscectomy and 165 of the knees with prevalent meniscal damage (58.9%) developed radiographic osteoarthritis, OR 2.51 (95% CI 1.73 to 3.64). Among knees that did develop it, partial meniscectomy carried an OR of 4.51 (95% CI 1.53 to 13.33) for worsening cartilage damage.

Population

355 Osteoarthritis Initiative knees that developed radiographic osteoarthritis, each matched to a control knee, with MRIs read by the semi-quantitative MOAKS system

Intervention

Conditional logistic regression on partial meniscectomy in the year before the case-defining visit

Limitations

Observational and matched on incident osteoarthritis, so it cannot separate the effect of the operation from the effect of whatever made the knee bad enough to be operated on. The one-year window is short enough that reverse causation is a live reading. Full text was not retrievable.