Arthroscopic Procedure for Chronic Isolated Bucket-Handle Meniscal Tears

Arthroscopic treatment is the treatment of choice in bucket-handle meniscal tears (BHMTs). Following BHMT, however, surgery failure rates are approximately 20% in the literature. Achieving the healing of BHMT is difficult. This is worse in chronic situations because the torn meniscus is deformed, leading to nonanatomical reduction. Some authors have reported greater failure rates, especially in the early postoperative period. In isolated BHMTs, the failure rate is greater because of inadequate and incomplete repairs due to the tight medial compartment. Multiple techniques for possible reduction of failure rate have been described. We describe an arthroscopic technique for treating chronic isolated BHMT using the technique of subcutaneously releasing the posterior fibers of the medial collateral ligament to provide adequate space for arthroscopy, meniscal reduction, and repair. A combined inside-out and all-inside repair technique was used to enhance anatomic reduction, stable fixation, surface fixation (rather than the usual suture-points fixation), and biologic healing in repairable chronic BHMTs.