The image below shows your knee region where you may feel pain from a posterior horn tear. We develop age-appropriate “tears” in other parts of our body too, not all of them cause pain and most do not require surgery.īy far, the most common location for a tear is in the back and on the inner or medial side of the knee - that is the area we call the posterior horn of the medial meniscus. That is why many of us in the orthopedic community now view these as an age-appropriate change. Some of you might remember that you bent down to get something off the floor or from under the bed and felt a click or pop.Įither way, most posterior horn meniscus tears in adults are “complex” tears and did not occur because of an injury– they simply wore out. Most of you will not recall any specific injury. A meniscus can tear simply because it wore out. Believe it, or not most meniscus tears do not occur due to injury in middle-aged individuals. People can develop tears of the meniscus because of trauma or sports injuries. Notice how the cartilage is no longer smooth and shiny… this is early degenerative joint disease As you can see below, if the articular cartilage is subject to too much force or load due to a meniscus tear then the cartilage can start to degenerate. By protecting the articular cartilage, the meniscus helps prevent the onset of arthritis. If the articular cartilage wears away, arthritis will occur. The articular cartilage coats the ends of our bones within a joint. This is how the meniscus protects the articular cartilage. It deforms or pushes outward and dissipates a lot of the force from the femur before the femur contacts the tibia. As the femur or thigh bone pushes down towards the tibia, the meniscus accepts a lot of the force. If you look at the image below, you see the meniscus in light blue. This helps minimize the stress on another type of cartilage in the knee, which we call the articular cartilage. The menisci serve a critical function in the knee as a shock absorber or cushion. See this post to learn more about how a meniscus functions. We have the medial meniscus on the inner side of the knee and the lateral meniscus on the outer side of the knee. The meniscus is a C-shaped cartilage disk that is found in the knee. Tears of the meniscus can vary by location of the tear, the type of tear, size of the tear, and the amount of pain they produce. Therefore, certain meniscus tears can be safely ignored, yet some we may want to fix immediately? We will discuss all this in more detail. Some of us run every day with known posterior horn tears. All meniscus tears are not treated the same. How do we differentiate the two?Īll meniscus tears are not viewed in the same manner. Many of you will recover from this episode of knee pain without surgery, yet some of you might be considered a good candidate for surgery. How do we determine which meniscus tears may need surgery and which can be treated without surgery? This post will dive deeper to answer your questions about tears of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus.ĭespite being considered a common age-appropriate change, some meniscus tears can be a cause of knee pain. Many posterior horn meniscus tears are found in people without knee pain. Wait? What? Yes, certain meniscus tears are simply part of the wear and tear process. Many Orthopedic Surgeons consider certain posterior horn meniscus tears to be a normal age-appropriate change. You’ve read your MRI report, and naturally, you’re concerned. The most common location for a meniscus tear is the posterior horn of the medial meniscus.
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