Introduction

Meniscus injuries are common in both adolescent and adult athletes. However, there are limited data assessing the impact of age at time of surgery on repair failure risk and patient-reported outcome scores.

Purpose

To determine whether age at time of meniscus repair surgery affects failure risk and patient-reported outcome scores. Methods: Patients who underwent meniscus repair between 2006 and 2013 were evaluated for meniscus repair failure and patient-reported outcome scores using the Knee Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score, and Marx Activity score at mean follow-up 6.5 ±2.0 years post-operative. Controlling for concomitant ACL reconstruction and BMI, a multivariable linear regression analysis was used to assess the influence of patient age on patient-reported outcome scores. Meniscus repair failure risk was compared between patients age 18 years and younger at surgery and patients over 18 with a chi-squared test. Logistic regression was also used to assess the relationship between age and repair failure risk controlling for concomitant ACL reconstruction and BMI.

Results

A total of 170 patients (mean age 27.8 ± 10.1years, 59% male) were identified, including 29 patients age 18 and younger and 141 patients over 18. Increasing patient age was associated with significantly lower IKDC (p=0.027), KOOS-ADL (p=0.003), and Marx activity scores (p<0.001). Repair failure occurred in 46 patients (27.1%) overall, including 7 failures (24.1%) in patients 18 and under and 39 failures (27.7%) in patients over 18 (p = 0.69). The logistic regression analysis demonstrated no association between age and meniscus repair failure risk when controlled for ACL reconstruction and BMI (p=0.69).

Conclusions

Increased age is associated with poorer IKDC, KOOS-ADL, and Marx Activity scores following meniscus repair. However, there is no difference in meniscus re-tear risk between adolescent patients and adults.