Joint line fullness and meniscal pathology.

Background: Meniscal tears have been associated with meniscal cysts and fullness of the knee joint line on physical examination.

Hypothesis: Joint line fullness is an accurate, sensitive, and specific test to detect meniscal tears.

Study Design: Prospective cohort study.

Early post-traumatic osteoarthritis-like changes in human articular cartilage following rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament.

Objective: Injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) frequently leads to post-traumatic osteoarthritis (OA). In this study we determined whether early degenerative changes characteristic of idiopathic OA are induced in articular cartilage following ACL injury.

Methods: A small sample of femoral articular cartilage was removed at surgery, as part of ACL reconstruction, from a total of 50 patients with ACL injuries.

Effect of the oral contraceptive pill on ligamentous laxity.

Objective: Women are 4 to 8 times more likely to sustain a serious knee injury than their male counterparts. Previous studies have found that female sex steroids affect ligamentous tissue properties. The hypothesis is that there exists a difference in ligamentous laxity between oral contraceptive pill (OCP) users and nonusers.