MENISCAL ALLOGRAFT TRANSPLANTATION FOR UNICOMPARTMENTAL ARTHRITIS OF THE KNEE

Sixty-seven meniscal allografts were transplanted in the knees of 63 p atients between 1988 and 1994, Before surgery, all patients experience d refractory disabling knee pain secondary to a prior total meniscecto my with advanced unicompartmental osteoarthritic changes as verified b y arthroscopy, At a mean followup of 31 months (range, 1.0-5.5 years), 58 knees (86.6%) attained a good to excellent result, Twenty-one knee s received isolated meniscal allografts, with 19 achieving good to exc ellent results (90.5%), Five knees received a medial or lateral menisc al allograft with an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, and 4 (80.0%) obtained good to excellent results, Thirty-four knees received a meniscal allograft in combination with either a valgus high tibial osteotomy, varus high tibial osteotomy, or varus distal femoral osteot omy to correct for preoperative varus or valgus deformities, with 29 ( 85.3%) attaining good to excellent results, The remaining 7 knees unde rwent a combined medial meniscal allograft, valgus high tibial osteoto my, and anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with 6 (85.7%) attai ning good to excellent results, The most frequent complication was a t raumatic posterior horn tear in 6 knees at a mean of 21 months after s urgery (range, 9-43 months), most likely the consequence of unsuccessf ul healing of the posterior horn of the graft.