Coronary ligament rupture as a cause of medial knee pain

Three cases of a meniscal injury variant are presented, the signs and symptoms of which imitate meniscal tear, but that required no definitive intervention and resolved with conservative management. We include a review of the literature on these injuries. Three patients attended clinic giving a history and exhibiting symptoms suggestive of medial meniscal injury. Symptoms were severe and of long enough duration to warrant arthroscopic examination of the knees. These patients were found to have coronary ligament ruptures. All the patients were treated conservatively. The pain resolved in all cases over a few months. No patient required a second arthroscopy. The patients were followed up for 9 months in 2 cases and 2 years in 1 case. By final follow-up examination, all patients were symptom free. Meniscal cartilage tear is the most common injury to the knee requiring surgery. Standard practice is to diagnose meniscal tear based on history and clinical evaluation, and to proceed to arthroscopy if severity of symptoms warrants intervention. Although coronary ligament rupture is reported in the literature, these reports have been, in the main, arthrographic diagnoses. Three case reports with arthroscopic illustration are presented.