Haemarthrosis of the knee joint: Diagnostic and theraepeutic advantages of arthroscopic technique

Abstract

Posttraumatic haemarthrosis without intraarticular bony lesion is caused by a severe ligament injury in most of the cases. An exact and early diagnosis is necessary to guarantee the best rehabilition of the knee joint and to avoid chronic instabilities and degenerative arthrosis. Arthroscopy gives an exact diagnosis of the intraarticular lesions and allows to obtain information that could influence the therapeutic consequence and approach to the injury. In a series of 1238 arthroscopies 252 (20,3%) were done for haemarthrosis. In 68% of these cases exact diagnosis could only be established by arthroscopy, so that in approximately one-third of the knee injuries an incorrect or incomplete diagnosis would have been made by only a clinical examiriation of the joint. In our series of 252 cases 23% had an isolated complete anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, 28% had anterior- medial instability, 8% partial CL lesions, 5% posterior ligament injuries, 15% medial collateralligament injuries, 11% had only synovial tears. 5% of cases had chronic ACL instability. In 4% we found osteochondral fragments.