MORPHOLOGICAL VARIANTS OF MENISCUS OF KNEE JOINT AND ITS CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS, AN AUTOPSY STUDY

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Aim. The objective of the present study was to study the various shapes of medial and lateral menisci of human knee joint and to determine the prevalence of discoid lateral meniscus in Indian population. Material and Methods. The present study included 25 human bodies, which were available at the medico legal autopsy in a government hospital in India. Among them 10 were male and 15 were females. There were 50 knee joints (25 right sided and 25 left sided) being studied, which included 50 medial menisci and 50 lateral menisci. Totally 100 menisci were studied. Results and Discussion. Among the medial meniscus, 34 (68%) were resembling ‘sided v’ shape, 7 (14%) had ‘crescent’ shape, 4 had sickle shape (8%), ‘C’ shape was observed in 3 cases (6%) and 2 were having ‘sided U’ shape (4%). The present study observed that 29 lateral menisci were having incomplete discoid morphology (58%). The lateral menisci were having ‘C shape’ morphology in 16 cases (32%) and crescent shape in 5 cases (10%). Conclusions. The present study observed various shapes of medial and lateral menisci in the human knee joint. The incidence of discoid lateral meniscus was 58%. However all these were incomplete discoid in morphology and the complete discoid meniscus was not observed in the present study (0%). The discoid medial meniscus was not observed in the present study (0%). We believe that the data of the present study is enlightening to the orthopaedic literature and incomplete discoid lateral meniscus may be considered as a normal variant.