A 38-year-old woman tore her meniscus while working in the garden. In most cases of such injuries, the damaged part is removed.
Instead, orthopedic trauma surgeons at St Luke’s Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv stitch it back together. This is a complex reconstructive surgery that preserves the function of the limb.
Vasylyna Rosa is from the village of Chemeryntsi in the Lviv region. She works as a nurse in the intensive care unit of the district hospital. The woman was injured at home in her garden: she sat down and couldn’t get up. She says the pain was so severe that she almost fainted. She immediately went to the doctors.
After the doctors discovered the meniscus tear, they advised him to seek help from the specialists at St Luke’s Hospital in Lviv. Because they have the experience and the necessary equipment to help such patients.
The diagnosis was as follows: combined damage to the lateral, or outer, meniscus. This is a cartilaginous “pad” in the knee joint that acts as a shock absorber. The patient’s meniscus was torn from its attachment point and ruptured. This is a fairly common injury, which occurs mainly in people aged 30 to 50 years, and accounts for about 70% of all knee injuries.
Usually, in such injuries, surgeons resort to removing the meniscus. Instead, orthopaedic traumatologists at Lviv Hospital prefer to preserve the cartilage lining. This significantly improves the long-term prognosis for patients. After all, 70% of people with meniscus removal develop arthritis, an inflammation of the joint, within 10 years. At the same time, meniscus repair surgery is much more complicated than meniscus removal. It requires high skill and special tools.
“Meniscus removal is a last resort. In Vasylina’s case, given her still quite young age and active lifestyle, we decided to close the tear and preserve the meniscus. And we managed to do it. This is a complex intervention that requires a highly qualified surgeon and modern equipment. In Lviv, such operations are rarely performed, but our team tries to use this method as often as possible in our work. This makes it possible to preserve the full function of the limb and ensure an active lifestyle for such patients,” explains Oleh Maksymovych, an orthopedic traumatologist at St Luke’s Hospital.
A month has passed since Vasylina’s surgery. She still walks on crutches, as her knee needs to be protected for a while longer. But soon the woman will make a full recovery: she will be able to return to her household chores and work.
“I work in intensive care as a nurse. It’s an important and hard job, I have to be on my feet all the time. Movement, first and foremost, is life. If there is no movement, we will not be cheerful, cheerful and able to work,” the woman says.