Intra articular knee cycts: diagnosis and treatment

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study is to investigate a series of patients diagnosed with symptomatic intraarticular knee cysts and describe the diagnostic algorithm and surgical techniques. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective study including 35 patients diagnosed with intraarticular knee cycts who underwent surgical treatment. We excluded patients diagnosed with a mucoid ligament and meniscal cycts. Twenty of the patients were men and 15 women with an average age of 39 years old. All patients underwent anecscional biopsy: 31 arthroscopically and 4 with an open resection. Hydrarthrosis, joint lock and complaints of unspecific pain were present among some of the clinical variations. All of the mentioned cases were diagnosed using MRI imaging and clinical follow up care in order to evaluate suspicion of relapse. RESULTS: In all of the mentioned cases, diagnosis were confirmed through anatomical pathology, with 16 focalized pigmented villonodular synovitis, 5 mucoidcycts, 4 synovial cysts, 1 fibrosis cyst , 6 ACL ganglions, 1 PCL ganglion, 2 ACL post operative fibrosis and 2 Bakers cycts. Of those patients: 34 showed favorable outcome and one patient with a Bakers Cyst presented complications with a relapse 6 months after the inicial surgery. CONCLUSION: The pre operative MRI is of great importance due to the fact thatcycts can be found in areas that are difficult to access or rarely explored. It is of much importance to investigate these types of pathologies being that an early diagnosis with surgical treatment can lead to favorable results.