Addressing meniscal deficiency part 1: An umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on meniscal allograft transplantation

Wu KA, Kiwinda LV, Therien AD, Castillo CJ, Hendren S, Long JS, Amendola A, Lau BC · Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics

Every review that reported patient-reported outcomes found them improved over baseline, most often on the Lysholm score. Graded against AMSTAR-2, 56.1% of the forty-one reviews came out at critically low confidence, 26.8% at low and 14.6% at high, and the recurring faults named are missing protocol registration, inadequate risk-of-bias assessment and unreported conflicts of interest. Fourteen reviews reported a transplant failure rate and eight a reoperation rate. The authors state that evidence transplantation delays the onset of osteoarthritis remains limited.

Population

Forty-one systematic reviews and meta-analyses of meniscal allograft transplantation, most of them published in the preceding decade

Intervention

Meniscal allograft transplantation for meniscal deficiency

Limitations

An appraisal of reviews rather than of patients, so it inherits whatever the underlying reviews got wrong, and it deliberately included every review it found regardless of quality — which the authors name as a limitation of their own work. English language and three databases. The authors declare no conflict of interest and name no funder.