Summary

Most orthopedic surgeons believe MRI is a great complimentary exam and had agreement in their analysis, except by cartilage injuries

Abstract

Introduction

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is very present in clinical practice among knee surgeons. It’s a non-invasive and accurate exam but still expensive.

Objective

to evaluate the importance given to MRI by orthopedic surgeons and to compare their interpretation in the most frequent cases
Hypotesis: Orthopedic knee surgeons use MRI as a valuable complimentary diagnosis in their clinical practice but history and physical examination are still essencial. Surgeons will have an agreement in most of diseases shown in MRI.

Material And Methods

The authors selected 10 MRIs of knee’s disease. Those exams were shown to 20 orthopedic surgeons from 6 different institutes and asked to complete a survey. Besides that they also answered questions about how familiar and the importance of this exam in their practice.

Results

Most surgeons said that MRI is important as complimentary exam but physical exam is the most important thing in diagnosis but when after making the physical exam they are still unsure about the diagnosis MRI becomes essential. We found statistical significance in agreement about meniscus, ACL and PCL tear. Otherwise there was no agreement when we asked about cartilage injury using ICRS classification.

Conclusion

MRI is useful in clinical practice specially when physical exam cause some doubts about the diagnosis. Orthopedic surgeons had agreement in most of cases after analyzing the MRI.