Validity of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Knee Injuries

INTRODUCTION: Knee injuries are common in athletes, recreationists, and other people in their everyday activities. OBJECTIVE: The study is aimed at establishing the validity of clinical findings, MRI and diagnostic arthroscopy of the knee in ACL, PCL, medial or lateral ligament lesions. METHODS: The prospective research involved 63 inpatients at the Traumatology Clinic in Banja Luka- Niš between 1 January 2011 and 1 June 2012. RESULTS: When clinically examining the ACL and based on the calculated post-test probability amounting to (LR+) = 0.8017, we conclude that there is a considerable probability (80.17%) that a patient with an arthroscopically diagnosed ACL lesion will have the same lesion diagnosed by MRI. The post-test probability following the clinical examination of the medial meniscus and amounting to (LR+) = 0.6943 suggests that there is a considerable probability (69.43%) that an arthroscopically diagnosed lesion of the medial meniscus will also be diagnosed by MRI. On the basis of the clinical examination of the lateral meniscus in the examined sample and calculated post-test probability amounting to (LR+) = 0.6346, we conclude that there is a considerable difference (63.46%) between the diagnostic arthroscopy and MRI of lateral meniscus lesions. CONCLUSION: Arthroscopic examination of the knee is a more valuable method than diagnosis by MRI and clinical examination for detecting lesions of the ACL, PCL, medial and lateral meniscus.