THURSDAY, July 22 (HealthDay News) -- The type of subacute knee injury seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at initial examination can predict the features of knee osteoarthritis (OA) likely to develop in the years ahead, according to a study published online June 29 in Radiology.

Kasper Huétink, M.D., of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues studied a cohort of 326 patients with subacute knee problems, such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscal injuries, who had an MRI at baseline examination. The cohort was followed for a mean 10 years for the development of knee OA.

The researchers found that features of OA that developed in the decade after knee injury varied according to the type of initial injury seen on MRI. Patients with ACL ruptures had increased risk for joint space narrowing (JSN), cartilaginous defects, osteophytes, bone marrow lesions, and subchondral cysts medially or laterally. Patients with medial meniscal tears had an increased risk for JSN, cartilaginous defects, osteophytes, and bone marrow lesions medially, while those with lateral meniscal tears had an increased risk of developing JSN, cartilaginous defects, osteophytes, bone marrow lesions, and subchondral cysts laterally. Meniscectomy did not reduce the risk of developing OA.

"Localized knee OA developed from risk factors identified from the findings of MRI performed a decade ago in patients with subacute knee symptoms and did not depend on the surgical treatment of those findings," the authors write.

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