There are several clinical outcome scores relating to meniscal injuries reported in the literature. However, the result of one scoring system is often different from that of the others even when assessing the same group of patients. This makes the comparison of results of studies who have used different outcome measures restrictive and difficult.

Statistically derived formulae can be used to predict the outcome of one knee scoring system when the result of another is known in patients with meniscal tears before and after arthroscopic meniscectomy.

Thirty-four patients with meniscal tears were evaluated using nine clinical outcome scores. These included Tegner Activity Score, Lysholm Knee Score, Cincinnati Knee Score, International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) Objective Knee Score, Tapper and Hoover Meniscal Grading Score, IKDC Subjective Knee Score, Knee Outcome Survey–Activities of Daily Living Scale, Short Form-12 Item Health Survey (SF-12) and Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS). Twenty-nine patients underwent an arthroscopic meniscectomy and were reassessed 3 months post-operatively.

There were considerable differences between the mean total of each of the nine outcome measures. Significant correlations and regressions were found between most of the outcome scores and were stronger following surgery. The strongest correlation was found between IKDC Subjective and SF-12 Physical Component Summary sub-score (r=0.94, P<0.001). The strongest regression formula was found between IKDC Subjective and KOOS (R²=0.93, P<0.001).

The outcome of one knee score can be predicted when the results of the other are known through formulae calculations produced from this study. This could facilitate the conduct of systematic reviews and meta-analysis in research pertaining to meniscal injuries by allowing the pooling of substantially more data.

II; prospective non-randomized trial.