Outcomes, Complications, and Reoperations After Meniscal Allograft Transplantation

Vasta S, Zampogna B, Den Hartog T, El Bitar Y, Uribe-Echevarria B, Amendola A · Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine

Patient-reported outcomes improved statistically and clinically at final follow-up (p<=0.003), and 85% of patients rated satisfaction at seven or more out of ten. Twenty-one of 93 knees (23%) needed at least one further operation, most often debridement of a torn graft. No graft in the followed-up group was removed or converted to a knee replacement — but institutional records show six of the thirty patients who did not take part had gone on to arthroplasty, and the authors put the success rate across the whole surgical group nearer 85%.

Population

Sixty-one patients (63 knees) of 91 eligible, mean age 25.5 years, followed a mean of 4.8 years (range 1.0 to 13.6)

Intervention

Meniscal allograft transplantation alone or alongside an osteotomy

Limitations

A retrospective case series with no comparator, level 4. Thirty of 91 patients were not available for follow-up, and the paper is explicit that this is what produces its headline survival figure: the six known arthroplasties among the missing are the reason the authors offer 85% rather than 100%. Reoperations elsewhere could not be counted. Author disclosures include relationships with orthopaedic device manufacturers.