Meniscal tears and entrapment in intercondylar eminence fractures in children: a systematic review of the literature

OBJECTIVES: Although they may be related to ACL tears in adults, there are few publications on meniscal injuries after intercondylar eminence fractures in children. METHODS: The main objective of this systematic review of the literature was to measure the incidence of meniscal injuries as well as concomitant tissue involvement in tibial eminence fractures (TEF) in children. The secondary objectives were to determine a diagnostic and therapeutic strategy to anticipate difficulties in reduction and to treat associated meniscal tears. The PubMed and Scopus database subject search included MeSH indexing terms: "intercondylar tibial fracture*" OR "tibial spine fracture*" OR “tibial spinal fracture” OR "tibial eminence fracture*" OR "intercondylar eminence fracture*". Only series of pediatric tibial eminence fractures with the presence of data on possible meniscal damage were selected. Case reports, mixed adult and child series and duplicates were excluded. RESULTS: 789 references were chosen with 91 eligible articles. Only 26 articles reported on the rates of meniscal tears and entrapment after these fractures. Of a total of 997 cases, 227 (22.8%) had a concomitant injury (osteochondral, ACL, PCL and/or meniscal), including 180 cases of meniscal tears (18.1%). Meniscal or intermeniscal ligament entrapment was present in 20.1% (n = 201) of the patients. 2 groups of diagnostic analyses of these injuries were compared: during the arthroscopy, or previously on MRI imaging. Meniscal tears were present in 20.9% of the patients in the arthroscopy group, compared with 26.1% in the group with a prior MRI (p = .06), and the proportion of meniscal tears was 18.6% in the arthroscopy group alone compared to 17.1% in the MRI group (p = .55). However, statistically, the proportion of entrapment noted was significantly higher in the arthroscopy group (17.8% vs 6.2%; p <.0001). CONCLUSION: This review of the literature reports a high incidence of meniscal tears and tissue entrapment in children. Although it would appear that MRI tends to improve the assessment of associated injuries, the rate of meniscal or intermeniscal ligament entrapment is low compared to the rate reported by arthroscopic diagnosis.