[Arthrography of the knee today]

The role of knee arthrography today is demonstrated and technical problems are discussed. Among many variants the position of the patient and the choice of contrast media play a great part in the result of the examination. Mild complications occur in 0.25% of the examinations, severe and life threatening complications are extremely rare. Diagnosis of meniscal lesions is most important for knee arthrography; arthroscopy and arthrography are complementary examinations and not mutually exclusive: combined they achieve an accuracy of 97-98%. In the same way arthrography is able to evaluate condropathy of the femoro-tibial joint, whereas accuracy of arthroscopy in the diagnosis of patellar chondropathy is much higher. Arthrography is very reliable in the evaluation of lesions of the capsule, but accuracy in lesions of the cruciate ligaments is low. Arthrography is very suitable for evaluation of Baker's-cysts, since the likelihood of threatened internal derangement of the knee is assessable. Knee arthrography is a complex and safe procedure causing very little discomfort to the patient; it has a central position in the evaluation of lesions of the knee.