Preoperative MRI and clinical indicators for predicting meniscal repairability: a machine learning-based study

To develop and internally validate a radiology-centered machine-learning model using preoperative MRI and clinical characteristics to predict arthroscopic meniscal repairability.

A retrospective cohort of 491 patients who underwent knee MRI followed by arthroscopy between 2018 and 2023 was analyzed. Preoperative predictors included demographic variables, injury mechanism, and a comprehensive set of MRI-derived features. Meniscal morphology, bone marrow edema, joint effusion, cruciate ligament integrity, cartilage degeneration, tear displacement, ramp lesion, and extrusion distance were systematically assessed by two musculoskeletal radiologists. Interobserver agreement was evaluated using Cohen's kappa and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression was used to identify the most informative predictors. Logistic regression, random forest, gradient boosting machine (GBM), and support vector machine (SVM) models were trained using five-fold stratified cross-validation with hyperparameter tuning via grid search. Model performance was evaluated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) with 95% confidence intervals, calibration metrics (calibration slope, intercept, and Brier score), and decision curve analysis (DCA).

LASSO selected 13 preoperative predictors spanning eight clinically relevant domains. Logistic regression achieved the highest cross-validated performance (AUC = 0.777, 95% CI 0.735-0.819), followed by SVM (AUC = 0.771), random forest (AUC = 0.770), and GBM (AUC = 0.755). Multivariable logistic regression identified ACL injury (OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.25-0.57, p < 0.001), high-grade cartilage degeneration (OR 0.42, 95% CI 0.28-0.63, p < 0.001), greater BMI (OR 1.08 per kg/m², 95% CI 1.03-1.13, p = 0.002), male sex (OR 0.51, 95% CI 0.33-0.78, p = 0.002), and ≥ 3 mm tear displacement (OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.29-0.67, p < 0.001) as independent predictors of non-repairability. Calibration analysis demonstrated good agreement between predicted and observed probabilities (calibration slope 0.95, intercept -0.08, Brier score 0.21). DCA demonstrated that logistic regression and random forest provided the greatest clinical net benefit across practical threshold probabilities.

A radiology-based machine-learning model integrating detailed preoperative MRI features can accurately predict meniscal repairability with internally validated performance and may assist surgeons in optimizing arthroscopic decision-making and surgical planning pending prospective external validation.