Knee pain and meniscus injury

Tenderness to palpation is elicited with the knee flexed 90° and the patient's foot resting on the table. The examiner's index finger probes the meniscus along the joint line. The most frequently encountered sites of tenderness are over or behind the medial collateral ligament, at the medial meniscal tender point. Less often the tender point will be anterior, in which case the phenomenon may be part of a patellar disorder, a bucket-handle tear of the medial meniscus, or a lesion of the anterior horn of the lateral meniscus. The lateral meniscal tender point may be anywhere along the joint line.