Meniscus Tear Treatment in Kolkata

Between the thigh bone and the shin bone sit two crescents of cartilage — the menisci — that spread every step's load across the joint. Tear one, and the knee tells you in a particular dialect: pain exactly along the joint line, a click on twisting, a catch on standing from a squat. Tear one badly enough and a flipped fragment can jam the hinge outright, leaving the knee locked short of straight.

Dr. Pradyumna Chakraverty treats meniscus injuries at his Behala and South Kolkata clinics — arthroscopically when surgery is needed, and with disciplined restraint when it is not. His MS in Orthopaedics is from KPC Medical College, Jadavpur; he serves as an Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics.

Two Very Different Tears Share One Name

The traumatic tear belongs to younger knees: a twist under load at football, a slip on a wet Kolkata pavement, sometimes accompanying an ACL rupture. The tissue is healthy and simply torn, which makes it a candidate for repair.

The degenerative tear belongs to knees past forty-five, where the meniscus frays as part of the same process that wears the cartilage — early osteoarthritis. MRI reports these tears in alarming language, but here is the uncomfortable truth Dr. Chakraverty will tell you plainly: trimming a degenerative tear in an arthritic knee frequently fails to help, because the tear was never the whole problem. These knees mostly belong in a strengthening programme, not an operating theatre.

Repair, Trim, or Leave Alone

• Repair — stitching the tear so it heals. Preferred wherever the tear sits in the blood-supplied outer rim and the tissue holds stitches, because a preserved meniscus is decades of protected cartilage
• Partial meniscectomy — trimming only the torn, unrepairable fragment. The word "partial" is doing important work: the goal is to remove as little as possible
• Leave alone — stable, quiet tears and most degenerative tears, managed with quadriceps strengthening and load sense
• Urgent surgery — the locked knee, where a displaced fragment blocks movement and waiting damages cartilage

The repair-versus-trim decision is made finally inside the joint, where the tissue can be seen and tested — which is why you will hear both possibilities discussed honestly before surgery rather than a single promised procedure.

After the Operation

The two operations have opposite recoveries, and knowing which you had matters. After a trim, the knee is walked on within days and rehabilitation is brief. After a repair, the stitched tissue is protected while it heals — bracing and limited weight-bearing for some weeks, with squatting and pivoting held back for longer. The slower road exists for a reason: it is the price of keeping your shock absorber, and it is nearly always worth paying.

Frequently Asked Questions