Journal of Academia and Industrial Research (JAIR) Volume 2, Issue 4 September 2013 226 ©Youth Education and Research Trust (YERT) jairjp.com Amandeep Kaur & Shubhpreet Sodhi, 2013 ISSN: 2278-5213 Morphometric Study of the Medial Meniscus of the Knee Joint in thirty Adult Male Cadavers Amandeep Kaur* and Shubhpreet Sodhi Dept. of Anatomy, G.G.S. Medical College, Faridkot, Punjab-151203, India asandhu2373@yahoo.in*, shubhpreet_27@yahoo.com; +91 8727020943 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract The objective of this study was to collect data and find morphometric variations in human beings meniscus. For this, 30 adult knees were studied to provide a baseline data of medial meniscus for morphometric parameters as this data was scarce in literature. The medial menisci form 60 knees of 30 adult male cadavers were properly dissected and dried. The parameters namely weight, inner circumference, outer circumference, width and thickness were tabulated, analyzed and comparison was made between meniscus of right and left side. Statistical analysis used was paired t-test. The average range of weight of medial menisci of both the knees is from 1.40-2.49 g. The average range of inner circumference of medial menisci of both the knees is from 4.20-9.80 cm. The average range of outer circumference of medial menisci of both the knees is from 6.5-11.6 cm. The average range of width of anterior segment of medial menisci of both the knees is from 0.5-1.5 cm. The average range of the width of middle segment of medial menisci of both the knees is from 0.7-1.6 cm. The average range of the width of posterior segment of medial menisci of both the knees is from 1.0-2.0 cm. On applying paired t-test between medial menisci of left and right knee, p value was found to be >0.05 which showed no significant difference in all these parameters. Keywords: Morphometric variations, medial meniscus, adult male cadavers, knee joint, paired t-test. Introduction The average width of normal meniscus is 12-13. The medial meniscus is C-shaped and it is wider anteriorly than posteriorly (Moore and Dalley, 2001). Its anterior insertion is fan shaped and attached to the tibial plateau and to the intercondylar notch above, about 6-7 mm anterior to the fixation of the anterior cruciate ligament (Moreno, 1995). Its posterior insertion is on the intercondylar area of the tibia between the posterior insertion of the lateral meniscus and anterior to the fixation of the posterior cruciate ligament (Messner and Gao, 1998). Blood supply was identified in the peripheral third of the meniscus around the 22 nd week of gestation (Petersen and Tillmann, 1995). At birth, almost the entire meniscus is vascularized. In the second year, a vascular area along the central margin of the meniscus is developed. Cohen et al. (1998) observed that there was also a relationship between the vascular indices in these regions and ages indicating that the values of the vascularization indices decreased with their increase. In a study, conducted by Almeida et al. (2004), on 44 menisci of 22 knee of adult men corpses, the result obtained were as follows: related to the thickness of outer circumference of the meniscus, a statistically significant difference was not observed (p>0.05) among the lateral meniscus, the medium third was the thickest part (p<0.05). Comparing the average values of medial meniscus with the values of lateral meniscus, it was observed that in the anterior and posterior thirds, the medial meniscus was significantly thicker as compared to the lateral meniscus. Thickness of medial menisci in anterior 3 rd was 5.92±1.337 mm, in middle 3 rd was 5.31±1.06 mm, in posterior 3 rd was 5.91±1.13 mm that of lateral menisci in anterior 3 rd was 3.71±1.15 mm, in middle 3 rd was 6.10±1.04 mm and in posterior 3 rd was 5.29±0.78 mm. In the study conducted by Almeida et al. (2004), the individual analysis of each meniscus showed that the posterior 3 rd was the widest part of the medial meniscus (p<0.05); while in the lateral meniscus, no statistically significant (p>0.05) difference was observed among the three examined points. Width of medial menisci in anterior 3 rd was 9.02±1.59 mm, in middle 3 rd was 12.16±2.58 mm, in posterior 3 rd was 17.37±2.22 mm, that of lateral menisci in anterior 3 rd was 11.86±1.81 mm, in middle 3 rd was 11.97±.56 mm, in posterior 3 rd was 11.44±1.07 mm, in the middle 3 rd , there was no statistically significant difference when comparing the lateral and the medial menisci (p>0.05). However, the anterior and the posterior thirds showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups. The relation of area of meniscus/area of tibial plate showed a percentage average value of 54.70±7.32% in the medial part and 48.67+4.43% in the lateral part (p<0.01). The distance between the anterior and posterior cornua of medial meniscus (29.70±4.12 mm) was significantly higher than (p<0.05) lateral meniscus (12.71±1.84 mm). RESEARCH ARTICLE