Changes in Functional Meniscal Morphology During Skeletal Growth and Maturation.

BACKGROUND: Little is known on how meniscal morphology develops during skeletal growth and maturation and its subsequent relationship with the corresponding bony anatomy.

HYPOTHESES: (1) Meniscal dimensions and morphology would change by age during skeletal growth and maturation in different ways in boys compared with girls. (2) Morphological features of the medial and lateral menisci would correlate to medial and lateral femoral condyle curvatures.

STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3.

METHODS: Anatomic features of the medial and lateral menisci were measured on magnetic resonance imaging scans from 269 unique knees (age, 3-18 years; 51% female) with no prior history of injury, congenital or growth-related skeletal disorders, or bony deformities. Morphological shape-based measurements were normalized to tibial plateau width or determined as ratios of meniscal dimensions. The association between age and anatomy was analyzed with linear regression. Two-way analysis of variance with the Holm-Šídák post hoc method was used to compare anatomy between sexes in different age groups. Linear regression was used to evaluate the relationship between femoral condyle curvature radius and meniscal morphology in each compartment after adjusting for age and sex.

RESULTS: Meniscal length, width, horn distance, mean cross-sectional area (CSA), and mean height increased with age in both sexes ( R 2 > 0.1; P < .001). Age-related changes in meniscal morphology were seen in normalized length, width, horn distance, and mean height; width-to-length ratio; horn distance-to-length ratio (lateral meniscus only); normalized mean CSA (except lateral meniscus in girls); and mean tip angle ( R 2 > 0.04; P < .02). Sex-based differences were also found, with some morphological differences (normalized length and height) throughout development ( P < .03) and size differences (length, width, and mean CSA) in later development ( P < .01). After adjusting for age and sex, there were significant correlations between medial condyle curvature radius and normalized width, width-to-length ratio, horn distance, horn distance-to-length ratio, mean CSA, and mean height of the medial meniscus ( P ≤ .041) and between lateral condyle curvature radius and normalized length, mean height, and mean tip angle of the lateral meniscus ( P ≤ .004).

CONCLUSION: Age-related changes in meniscal dimensions and morphology, most notably a nonuniform growth pattern in meniscal geometry, occurred during skeletal growth and maturation, with different trends in boys than in girls.