Clinically oriented morphometric study of medial and lateral menisci of the knee joint in adult cadavers

Purpose: The objective was to analyze the peripheral and inner border lengths of the medial and lateral menisci and the distance between anterior and posterior horns. Materials and Methods: The menisci from 23 adult knee joints (46 menisci) of the formalin fixed cadaver lower limbs were used. The peripheral and inner borer lengths of the menisci were measured with a non elastic cotton thread and the distance between the horns were measured with the vernier caliper of 0.02 mm accuracy. Results: The mean peripheral lengths of the medial and lateral menisci were 99.06 ± 11.21 and 90.25 ± 9.36 mm respectively. The inner border lengths for the same were determined as 55.44 ± 8.37 and 50.63 ± 5.33 mm respectively. The distances between the anterior and posterior horns were 24.13 ± 4.19 and 11.31 ± 3.86 mm for the same. The peripheral length and inter horn distance of the medial meniscus was more than the lateral, the statistically significance was observed (*p<0.05). The other parameters obtained were statistically not significant. Conclusion: The present study had determined some important anatomical data which may be of importance to the orthopaedic literature. The findings are also enlightening for the anthropologists and clinical anatomists.