Broadly speaking, the
menisci should be examined with the knee in flexion. There will be
tenderness (i.e. the patient will respond to palpation with pain). There
are various ways in which the sensitivity of the tests can be enhanced.
However, all the tests for meniscal lesions rely on the same principle:
Stressing an injured medial or lateral meniscus will cause pain.
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.
