Management of traumatic meniscus tears: the 2019 ESSKA meniscus consensus

Kopf S, Beaufils P, Hirschmann MT, Rotigliano N, Ollivier M, Pereira H, Verdonk R, Darabos N, Ntagiopoulos P, Dejour D, Seil R, Becker R · Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy

The consensus is that preservation should be the first line of treatment wherever it is possible, because clinical and radiological long-term outcomes are worse after partial meniscectomy than after meniscus preservation. It also insists that traumatic and degenerative meniscus injuries be distinguished by cause rather than treated as one condition.

Population

Twenty-seven question-and-answer sets on traumatic meniscus tears, drafted by a steering group of eight European surgeons and scientists, rated by nineteen more and peer reviewed

Intervention

Formal consensus process grading each answer A to D by the strength of its scientific support

Limitations

A formal consensus, so its recommendations mix scientific support with expert opinion and are graded A to D to say which is which. It is scoped to traumatic tears by design and says nothing about the degenerative tears that dominate middle-aged practice. Open access funding provided by Projekt DEAL; the authors declare no conflict of interest.