Abstract

Complete radial tears of the lateral meniscus are relatively rare. Once torn, the injury can be debilitating due to disruption of the circumferential fibers of the meniscus. We experienced a case of a lateral meniscus with a complete radial tear at the midbody, where the two torn ends were displaced more than 1 cm and could not be approximated during arthroscopy. Thirteen months after surgery, follow-up MRI and second-look arthroscopic findings showed that the complete radial tear has healed spontaneously. However, twenty nine months after the second-look arthroscopy, the patient complained of severe knee pain during exercise. On follow-up MRI, increased sclerosis and newly developed bone marrow edema were observed in the lateral femoral condyle, compared with previous MR images. Finally, we performed meniscal allograft transplantation due to the defective properties of the completely healed lateral meniscus.

• Keywords: Lateral meniscusRadial tearsSpontaneous healing