Surgical Outcomes of Revision Meniscal Repair: A Case Series

Revision meniscal repair may yield better postoperative outcomes than meniscectomy. Few studies concerning the postoperative results of revision meniscal repair are available.

To evaluate the clinical outcomes following revision meniscal repair for meniscal retears after isolated meniscal repair.

Case series; Level of evidence, 4.

The cases of 11 knees with ≥1 year of postoperative follow-up were retrospectively analyzed after they had undergone revision as a result of retear at the initial suture site between 2018 and 2024. We compared the patients' presurgical and final follow-up values on the Tegner sports activity score (Tegner score), Lysholm score, and International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) Subjective Knee Form by Wilcoxon signed-rank test. At 1 year postoperatively, the revision site was structurally evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). To account for multiple comparisons across outcome measures, a Bonferroni correction was applied, with statistical significance set at a P value of < .02.

Of the 11 knees, 7 were male and 4 were female (median age at revision: 23 years; IQR, 17-32 years). The median Lysholm and IKDC scores both improved significantly from 57.0 (IQR, 40.0-81.0) and 50.8 (IQR, 37.9-72.4) before revision surgery to 91.0 (IQR, 90.0-100.0) and 88.5 (74.7-94.3) at the final follow-up (P = .002, r = 0.89; P = .002, r = 0.89), respectively. Postoperative MRI findings revealed low-signal intensity changes at the revision site in 8 of 11 patients, whereas 3 patients demonstrated persistent high-signal intensity.

Our study showed that revision meniscal repair may improve short-term clinical results in carefully selected patients with retears. Further research is required to define optimal indications and techniques.