The correlation between clinical diagnosis of knee pathology and findings at arthroscopy

The purpose of this study is to compare the diagnostic value of clinical findings with arthroscopic findings in the knee pathologies. İn this prospectlve study, 666 knees of 666 patients were evaluated. By comparing the clinical findings with arthroscopic findings; the accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative estimated values of the clinical findings in diagnosis were calculated. High accuracy rates were found in meniscal and anterior cruciate ligament lesions with clinical examination (78.9-92.4%). Hovvever, the accuracy rates in chondral, plica, synovial lesions, and loose body were found low (77-84.6%). The sensitivity rates of meniscal and anterior cruciate ligament were found high (81.1-78.2%). On the contrary, chondral, plica, and synovial lesions and loose body sensitivity rates were found low (44.6-51.9%). These findings suggested that clinical examination of meniscal lesions and anterior cruciate ligament tears were more valuable than other knee pathologies such as chondral, plica, and synovial lesions and loose body. They also can be helpful for accurate diagnosis when they are used with other diagnostic tools.