[The problematical painful knee. An arthroscopic study of 300 cases]

The diagnosis of internal derangements of the knee sometimes presents a graft deal of difficulty. If today the expression "Internal derangement of the knee" is much more rare, it is due to the progress made in the field of diagnosis thanks, in particular, to arthrography and arthroscopy. The authors report the results of 300 arthroscopies of the knee. They present the most significant forms of the problem knee: hypertrophy of the adipose tissue, hypertrophy of the synovial folds, villo-nodular synovitis, synovial chondromatosis, radiolucent mobile foreign bodies, osteochondritis dessicans hidden meniscal lesions and specific and non-specific mono-arthritis. In the majority of cases, the clinical suspicion was confirmed, but in 29% of cases arthroscopy corrected the diagnosis. Arthroscopy, is judged to be of great value in the diagnosis of doubtful forms of the painful knee syndrome. Often it eliminates the need to open the joint and almost always directs the incision to the most appropriate region and, above all, it prevents the risk of unnecessary operation.