Bilateral complete discoid medial meniscus: how many cases? Associated pathologies?

Abstract

Dear Editor, I have read the article ‘‘Bilateral complete discoid medial meniscus combined with posterior cyst formation’’ by Franceschi et al. [3] with care and appreciation. In 1998, we presented a case with bilateral discoid medial menisci (BDMM) and reviewed the literature [1]. Pinar et al. added two more cases to BDMM series in 2000, and the number of the cases reached 11 at that time [7]. However, some more cases and comments were added to the literature then, for instance the 12th case by Atay et al. [2] in 2001. One of the latest reports on BDMM was by Kim and Seo [5]. They have added one more case to the ‘‘already reported 13 cases’’; the sum being 14 just before Franceschi et al. submitted their work to the journal (Kim and Seo study E-published: 13 March 2006; Franceschi et al. submission received by the journal: 1 May 2006). Even some more case series (three cases) appeared just after [6]. Franceschi et al. [3] stated that the number of the cases in the literature was 11, referring to Pinar et al. [7]. As, when an author reports on a case of rare conditions, he/she commonly—and naturally—should take the most current article into account as a new starting point. Therefore, we feel that it is important to correct this issue, as a sound reference point for future reports. In addition, combined cyst formation in BDDM is also not a unique specialty of the reported case by the authors, as Kim and Choi reported on a case of BDMM with cyst formation in 1996 [4]. I believe that as Tachibana et al. [8] stated ‘‘the reported prevalence of bilateral discoid medial menisci (BDMM) will probably increase, because when a discoid medial meniscus is encountered currently, an MRI is used to find knee disorders, including in the contralateral knee’’. Therefore, we may suggest that bilateral occurrences of discoid medial menisci may be much more common than predicted, as associated knee pathologies like anomalous attachments as Kim and Choi and Lee [4, 6] or cyst formations as Kim and Choi and the authors stated [3, 4].