Role of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in evaluation of sports related knee injuries

Abstract

Sports knee injury is a very common condition that is frequently encountered both in general practice and in the hospital setting. Sports knee injuries represent one of the problems facing athletes which may change their life style and the early diagnosis is of a great value in the treatment of these injuries MRI can improve the diagnostic accuracy, which may reduce the time in which athletes cannot play in games or practice and may accelerate rehabilitation after injury. MRI represent the optimal imaging tool in the evaluation of the sports – related knee injuries , which has been shown to be an accurate and non invasive method of diagnosing ligament, meniscal, cartilage and muscular knee injuries. In our study we examined 53 patients with the routine MRI technique without contrast. A carefully elicited history may help in establishing a likely mechanism of injury, and that will help in choosing the best MRI plane and pulse sequence for each suspected injury. Sports injuries mainly affected young males rather than females and the commonest type of injuries were menisci, bone, ACL, and collateral ligaments, respectivly . Complex injuries involving multiple structures are common and most common mechanism of injury was valgus and external rotation on flexed knee. In conclusion, we found that the best plane and pulse sequence for each injury was as following: - Sagittal PD FSE sequence for appreciation of the ACL, PCL and the extensor mechanism tendons. - Sagittal PD fat suppressed sequence for menisci. - Coronal PD fat suppressed sequence for menisci, collateral ligaments and articular cartilage. - IR is the best sequence for bone marrow edema. - T1W images help in the appreciation of bone injury. - T2W images help in demonstration of joint effusion. Despite the fact that this study has a limitation due to small number of patients, we believe that it could be a baseline and give guidance for further studies.