BACKGROUND: Discoid lateral meniscus is the most common etiology for isolated meniscal pathology in the pediatric population. However, there remains a limited understanding of how complication rates vary among different age groups undergoing surgical management of a symptomatic discoid lateral meniscus. The aims of this study were to compare postoperative complication rates between age groups in pediatric patients undergoing surgical management of a symptomatic discoid lateral meniscus and assess whether patient age group is a risk factor for any complication rate that differed between the 2 age groups. METHODS: Consecutive cases of discoid lateral meniscus surgeries from 2018 to 2022 were queried from the SCORE database. Demographic, perioperative, and postoperative complication data were collected and compared between patients <10 and ≥10 years old. A multivariable logistic regression was used to better understand those variables that demonstrated significant differences between age cohorts. RESULTS: Seven hundred sixty-three discoid lateral meniscus surgeries were identified for inclusion in this study, with 160 (20.5%) aged 10 years or younger and 603 (79.5%) 10 years or older. Postoperative stiffness was the most common complication occurring in 5.0% of patients. Overall complication rates were no different between the 2 age groups (11.9% vs. 11.9%, P=1.000). Specific complication rates were also no different between the 2 age groups with the exception that patients 10 years or younger had higher rates of postoperative stiffness than patients 10 years or older (11.3% vs. 3.3%, P<0.001) including both extension loss (6.4% vs. 1.2%, P<0.001) and flexion loss (3.1% vs. 1.7%, P<0.001). In multivariable analysis, age 10 years or younger was identified as a risk factor for postoperative stiffness when controlling for confounding variables. Specifically, patients 10 years or younger had 2.67 (95% CI: 1.12-5.86) and 3.09 (95% CI: 1.11-8.62) times the odds of developing postoperative stiffness and extension loss, respectively, compared with patients 10 years or older. CONCLUSION: This study shows that age 10 years or younger is a risk factor for developing postoperative stiffness after undergoing surgical treatment of a symptomatic discoid lateral meniscus. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III-therapeutic, retrospective comparative study.
Baird et al. (Mon,) studied this question.