[Knee cartilage injuries in athletes]

Acute and chronic cartilage injuries are often encountered in professional and recreational athletes. They can compromise the athlete's performance and career and are considered a potential risk factor for early joint degeneration.

Incidence of cartilage injury in athletes, understanding of cartilage composition, injury mechanism and suitable diagnostic imaging are summarized and established therapeutic procedures, postoperative imaging including detection of relevant complications and assessment of reasonable indications for follow-up examinations are described.

Original research and review articles were analyzed.

Cartilage injury can mimic meniscal or ligamentous injury and cannot be ruled out by clinical examination alone. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the method of choice to (1) detect (sensitivity 87-93%, specificity 94-99%) and grade cartilage lesions to facilitate choice of therapy and (2) to exclude concomitant injuries that require treatment to improve the prognosis of the chosen cartilage therapy. Postoperatively MRI allows noninvasive assessment of the repaired cartilage tissue and is an appropriate method to detect therapeutically relevant complications.

Knowledge of mechanisms and appearance of cartilage injuries, current cartilage repair techniques and their imaging is crucial for the medical care of athletes.