Study: Meniscal transplant improves function in short- to mid-term, but procedure may not be curative in the long-term.
According to findings published in the Aug. 5 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS), patients who undergo meniscal transplantation demonstrate good outcomes in the short- to mid-term, but additional surgery may be required in the long-term. The researchers conducted a prospective study of 40 consecutive medial and lateral bone-meniscus-bone transplants using cryopreserved menisci in 38 patients. At mean 11-year follow-up, they found that the estimated probabilities of transplant survival were 88 percent at 5 years, 63 percent at 10 years, and 40 percent at 15 years. The researchers noted that overall mean time to failure was 8.2 years for medial transplants and 7.6 years for lateral transplants. They write that patients who undergo meniscal transplantation “should be advised that the procedure is not curative in the long term and additional surgery will most likely be required.”
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