Shear stress in the medial meniscus posterior root during daily activities

Medial meniscus posterior root (MMPR) tears have been reported to occur in middle-aged patients with minor trauma. However, the injury mechanism of MMPR tears remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the shear stress in the MMPR during daily activities using a finite-element analysis.

Subject-specific finite-element models of the knee joint of a healthy middle-aged subject were developed from computed tomographic and magnetic resonance images. A three-dimensional motion capture system "VICON" was used to capture four daily activities: walking, jogging, descending stairs, and landing. The knee joint reaction force was estimated using the AnyBody modeling system. Based on these procedures, the shear stress in the MMPR was calculated during each motion. The shear stress in the lateral meniscus posterior root (LMPR) was also measured to compare the stress between the MMPR and LMPR.

The shear stress in the MMPR increased as the knee flexion angle increased during each motion. Descending stairs caused more than two-fold greater stress in the MMPR than walking and a similar or greater amount of stress than jogging. The LMPR tended to receive more shear stress than the MMPR throughout each motion.

The present study showed that descending stairs confers almost the same amount of shear stress to the MMPR as jogging. The results of the present study may suggest that descending motion of the knee is an important cause of MMPR tear, and the initiation of descending stairs should be delayed after MMPR repair.