KNEE ARTHRITIS - General principles of managing Osteoarthritis of the knee :
Help needed re. MRI report - - Posted by danf1168 (danf1168), 6 January 2003
Just got my copy of my MRI report and I won't see my Dr. for a few weeks. What does this mean in English:
" Degenerative changes within all 3 joint compartments of the knee with a localized defect of the articular cartilage along the posterior surface of the medial femoral condyle of the knee with abnormal signal changes seen within the underlying bone marrow."
I've had 2 surgeries(menisectome and ACL recon.) and he wants me to go for a 3rd.(clean out scar tissue) Thanks for your responses. -Dan
Posted by katie (katie), 8 January 2003
"localized defect of the articular cartilage along the posterior surface of the medial femoral condyle of the knee with abnormal signal changes seen within the underlying bone marrow" sounds like it might be osteonecrosis or osteochondritis (I'm not 100% sure of the medical differential) which has reached through the bone underneath and damaged the cartilage. I caution that I'm not a doctor. The terms are familiar because I've heard them before - I developed OC in a femoral condyle after a go-karting accident. {Medial femoral condyles seem to be a prime place for OC to develop, on the plus side there's a reasonable healing rate for that site.}
It might be caused by abnormal loading of the cartilage after the menisectomy - but I've heard that small defects like this are a fairly common after-effect of surgeries like ACL reconstruction. If the defect is small, it may heal on its own {we tried this with mine - two months non-weight bearing. Dull, but at least it's non-invasive...}. If it's medium or doesn't heal it'll need abrasion and microfracture {day arthro surgery type stuff and then some physio}. If it's larger there are other procedures (which thankfully I've not had to find out about) like grafting bits of bone, making a bone paste which is packed into place.
Judging the size of the lesions is, so I've been told, hard even for experienced orthos to do from the MRI.
The good news is that if it is that, it won't get noticeably worse while you wait the couple of weeks and have the MRI properly looked at. And possibly good news is that I've read accounts of ACL reconstruction, and osteochondritis seemed substantially less annoying to have fixed...
Hope it all goes well, and try not to worry too much. If it was anything too bad, they'd be rushing your appointment with the doctor...
Posted by danf1168 (danf1168), 10 January 2003
Thanks for your responses. Very informative. The way my Dr. explained it, the pain I'm getting could be scar tissue, the bakers cyst or a "divot" that unfortunately has developed in the bottom of my knee. He won't know until he goes in for an arthroscopy which will probably be in the beginning of next month. The waiting and not knowing is the hardest part. Thanks for the time you took. I appreciate it. -Dan
Updated Sat Nov 21 2009
