Introduction

While meniscus preservation has gained in popularity in recent years, relatively little is known about the outcomes of concomitant repair of medial and lateral meniscal tears (bimeniscal tears). We hypothesize that arthroscopic bimeniscal repair patients will demonstrate similar clinical and functional outcomes as compared to single meniscal repair patients.

Materials And Methods

Record review identified 55 patients who underwent arthroscopic bimeniscal repair with or without a concomitant ACL reconstruction at our center between 2006 and 2013. Retrospective chart analysis and questionnaire follow-up was used to identify complications, repeat surgery risk, and collect patient-reported outcomes (IKDC score, KOOS score, and Marx activity level). Each contacted patient was then matched based on age, time to follow-up, and concomitant ACL injury with a patient who underwent isolated medial meniscus repair and a patient who underwent isolated lateral meniscus repair and outcomes were compared.

Results

A total of 37 patients (69%) were contacted at a mean of 8.1 years (range 3.5–13.5) post-operative. 86% underwent all-inside repair and 14% underwent inside-out repair. Concommitant ACL reconstruction was performed in 92% of patients. All 37 bimeniscal patients were matched to isolated medial meniscus repair patients. 20 bimeniscal patients were successfully matched to 20 isolated lateral meniscus repair patients. Meniscus repair failure occurred in 11 patients in the bimeniscus repair group (30%), 7 patients in the medial meniscus repair group (19%) (p = 0.28 vs bimeniscal), and 5 patients in the lateral meniscus repair group (25%) (p = 0.70 vs bimeniscal). No significant differences in patient reported outcomes were noted between bimeniscal repair patients and matched lateral or medial repair groups (Table 1).

Conclusions

Arthroscopic bimeniscal repair yields outcomes that are similar to those of single meniscal repairs. Further work with larger patient numbers are required to identify whether there is a significantly higher failure risk of bimeniscal repair.