ANTERIOR INTERMENISCAL LIGAMENT CHARACTERISTICS BY MRI

Abstract

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to investigate the anterior intermeniscal ligament’s incidence, morphologic characteristics and its attachment site to anterior horns of both menisci by MRI.
Patients and methods: In 200 knees of the 190 randomly chosen patients were evaluated by MRI. 200 patients (89 male, 101 female) with an average age of 40.07 years (range, 10 to 75), who either had a knee complaint or underwent MRI examination for other reasons. (cases younger than 18 years old were excluded from the measurements of length and width)
Results: Anterior intermeniscal ligament was detected in 155 knees (77.5 %). The average ligament length was 32.95 mm. Male patients had significantly longer anterior intermeniscal ligament than female patients (35.11 vs. 32.25 for males and females respectively) (p<0.05). Majority of the thicknesses of anterior intermeniscal ligaments at their attachment sites to menisci were less than 3 mm these are defined as ‘Membraneus like’ and the thicknesses of 3 mm or more at their attachment sites to anterior horns of menisci were defined as “cord-like”.
Discussion: It was suggested that “cord-like” pattern might be considered as a variation of the anterior intermeniscal ligament’s attachment characteristics and this might have a significant role in meniscal translations during knee motion and also the “cord-like” pattern may become clinically important with respect to its relationship to the anterior horn of medial meniscus.