Meniscus Tears: Meniscal Root Repair Animation

Meniscus Tears: Meniscal Root Repair Animation

This animation demonstrates a meniscal root repair to treat a meniscal root tear. The knee has a meniscus within each side of the joint: the medial meniscus on the inner side of the knee and the lateral meniscus on the outer side of the knee. Each meniscus is C-shaped and is secured to the middle portion of the top of the tibia, or shinbone, by the meniscal roots in the front and back.

In this procedure, a soft, all-suture implant specifically designed for reattaching the meniscal root back to the top of the shinbone will be used. This implant has 2 sets of sutures, each containing a repair suture and a striped looped suture, that are used to tack down the meniscal root without having to tie knots. Here, we see the back and top of a right shinbone that forms the bottom half of the knee joint. There is a tear in the meniscal root of the medial meniscus on the inner side of the knee.

First, a small tunnel is drilled up through the shinbone to exit where the meniscal root was attached. Compared to other types of meniscal root repair surgeries, a smaller drill pin is used here to reduce the amount of bone that is drilled away. The inner portion of the drill pin is hollow, allowing a metal wire to be passed into the knee. The drill pin is removed, and the metal wire is used to pass the all-suture implant into the tunnel. The surgeon will then set the implant, making sure that it bunches up inside the bone and stays secured in the top of the shinbone.

Then, a suture-passing instrument is used to pass the blue suture from the implant through the meniscal root. The free end of the blue suture is then passed through the loop of 1 of the striped sutures, which is pulled to bring it back down through the implant. Before the blue suture is tightened all the way, the same steps are repeated for the white suture and other striped suture. Now, both the blue and white sutures are tightened 1 after another until the meniscal root is firmly attached down to the bone.

Once secured, the free ends of the sutures are cut off and the skin incisions will be closed with additional sutures. The meniscal root repair is now complete.