The Long-term Chondroprotective Effect of Meniscal Allograft Transplant: A 10- to 14-Year Follow-up Study

Wang DY, Zhang B, Li YZ, Meng XY, Jiang D, Yu JK · The American Journal of Sports Medicine

Joint space narrowing was 0.58 (SD 0.66) mm in the transplantation group and 1.26 (SD 1.13) mm in the meniscectomy group (P = 0.025). The cartilage degeneration index derived from 3D T2-mapping MRI rose 1132 (SD 1589) after transplantation and 2182 (SD 1958) after meniscectomy, which did not reach significance (P = 0.079). The transplantation group was split by whether the graft had extruded 3 mm on coronal MRI, and the extrusion distance was correlated against the index increase.

Population

17 knees after meniscal allograft transplantation and 26 after meniscectomy in the same period, followed a mean of 11.3 years (range 10 to 14), with 27 healthy contralateral legs as controls

Intervention

Meniscal allograft transplantation

Comparator

Meniscectomy

Limitations

Level III, 17 transplanted knees against 26 meniscectomised ones, and the two operations were not allocated — a knee offered a transplant is a knee somebody judged worth transplanting. The joint-space difference reached significance and the cartilage-index difference did not, which is the honest summary of a study this size. Full text was not retrievable.