title: Correlation between radiographic and arthroscopic findings in Asian osteoarthritic knees.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the correlation between radiographic and arthroscopic findings for severity of knee osteoarthritis (OA) in 119 Asians.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medical records of 52 men and 67 women aged 33 to 70 (mean, 51) years who had complaints of chronic mechanical knee pain for >3 months and were arthroscopically diagnosed with articular cartilage degeneration of the knee were reviewed. The severity of knee OA was classified using the Kellgren-Lawrence (K&L) scale and the modified Outerbridge classification. The highest grade in any compartment of the knee was used to represent the severity of OA. The correlation between the radiographic and arthroscopic findings for severity of knee OA was evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  17 of the 119 patients with no radiographic evidence of OA (K&L grade 0) had articular cartilage degeneration arthroscopically (mean grade, 1.14). In general, higher K&L grades correlated with more severe articular cartilage degeneration. The Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.32, indicating that the association between the radiographic and arthroscopic findings for severity of knee OA was weak.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The K&L scale correlated poorly with arthroscopic findings of articular cartilage degeneration in an Asian population with knee OA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore.
authors.forename: Hamid Rahmatullah
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Bin Abd Razak
authors.forename: Hwee Yee
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Heng
authors.forename: Ke Yi
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Amit Kanta
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Mitra
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001182:Arthroscopy; D044466:Asian People; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020370:Osteoarthritis, Knee / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000473:pathology*; D011859:Radiography; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
keywords: arthroscopy; osteoarthritis, knee; radiography