Magnetic resonance imaging of traumatic knee articular cartilage injuries*

The purpose of this study was to assess the sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging in determining the pres-ence of articular cartilage injuries of the knee with arthroscopy as the standard for comparison. Forty-nine articular cartilage lesions were documented in 28 knees (27 patients) by arthroscopy. There were 22 men and 5 women with an average age of 29 years. Multiplanar magnetic resonance imaging was performed with spin echo and gradient-refocused acquisition in a steady state pulse technique. All of the knees had magnetic resonance imaging done within 4 weeks prior to ar-throscopy. The magnetic resonance images were inter-preted before arthroscopy and interpreted again after the results of arthroscopy were known to better defin