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3D strain in native medial meniscus is comparable to medial meniscus allograft transplant

  • Knee
  • Published:
Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy Aims and scope

Abstract

Purpose

Injury or degeneration of the meniscus has been associated with the development of osteoarthritis of the knee joint. Meniscal allograft transplant (MAT) has been shown to reduce pain and restore function in patients who remain symptomatic following meniscectomy. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and compare the three-dimensional (3D) strain in native medial menisci compared to allograft-transplanted medial menisci in both the loaded and unloaded states.

Methods

Ten human cadaveric knees underwent medial MAT, utilizing soft-tissue anterior and posterior root fixation via transosseous sutures tied over an anterolateral proximal tibial cortical bone bridge. The joint was imaged first in the non-loaded state, then was positioned at 5° of flexion and loaded to 1× body weight (650 ± 160 N) during MR image acquisition. Anatomical landmarks were chosen from each image to create a tibial coordinate system, which were then input into a custom-written program (Matlab R2014a) to calculate the 3D strain from the unloaded and loaded marker positions. Six independent strains were obtained: three principal strains and three shearing strains.

Results

No statistically significant difference was found between the middle and posterior strains in the native knee compared to the meniscus allograft. This would suggest that soft-tissue fixation of meniscal allografts results in similar time zero principal and shear strains in comparison to the native meniscus.

Conclusion

These results suggest that time zero MAT performs in a similar manner to the native meniscus. Optimizing MAT strain behavior may lead to potential improvements in its chondroprotective effect.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a research grant from the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation.

Funding

This study was funded by a research grant from the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

    Sandra Kolaczek & Karen Gordon

  2. University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

    Christopher Hewison

  3. Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland

    Scott Caterine

  4. Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic, Western University, London, UK

    Rebecca Berardelli, Ben Herman & Alan Getgood

  5. Department of Anatomy, Western University, London, UK

    Tyler Beveridge

  6. Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

    Mark Hurtig

Authors
  1. Sandra Kolaczek
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  2. Christopher Hewison
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  3. Scott Caterine
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  4. Rebecca Berardelli
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  5. Tyler Beveridge
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  6. Ben Herman
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  7. Mark Hurtig
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  8. Karen Gordon
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  9. Alan Getgood
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alan Getgood.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Kolaczek, S., Hewison, C., Caterine, S. et al. 3D strain in native medial meniscus is comparable to medial meniscus allograft transplant. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 27, 349–353 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00167-018-5075-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00167-018-5075-3

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