What is the treatment for lateral meniscal injury with a patellar cartilage injury?

Question

Hello doctor,

I am an 18-year-old female with a height of 5 feet 8 inches weighing, 160 lbs concerned about an odd sound in my left knee as I landed weirdly from a jump and fell to the floor while playing tennis. I have done an MRI scan and I am having trouble understanding the results. I am worried if I will need surgery or if is there another way. At present, I can stand on my left knee, but I cannot extend my knee while sitting down because of pain. I have attached my reports. Kindly help.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I can understand your concern.

I have gone through your reports (attachments have been removed to protect the patient's identity) and can infer that it is a post-traumatic lateral meniscal injury with a patellar cartilage injury. There is a cartilage injury behind the knee cap, and the fragment of the cartilage detached is loose which needs to be removed. The lateral meniscus (which is the cushion of the knee joint) is also torn, which needs arthroscopic partial cutting down at the area of the tear. Since you are an athlete and an active person, surgery is necessary. The loose fragment will keep causing the knee to swell until the surgery is done. Kindly consult a specialist as it should be correlated with clinical findings.

I hope this information will help you.

Thank you.