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Fig. 2 | Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics

Fig. 2

From: Anatomical study: comparing the human, sheep and pig knee meniscus

Fig. 2

Different views of a human knee and animal stifle joints arranged into three columns and rows. Top row: a shows an anterior view of a partially opened left human knee joint after severing the anterior cruciate ligament; b and c posterior views of left pig and right sheep stifle joints, showing the femoral and tibial parts. This back view demonstrates the attachment site of the posterior horn of the lateral meniscus into the postero–lateral corner of the medial femoral condyle (thin white arrows) and below there is the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) insertion site into the tibia (vertical black arrows). Noticeable is the absence of the fibula in the sheep joint (thick yellow arrow). Middle row: d, e and f showing top views of the medial and lateral menisci with their tibial insertion sites after removal of the femoral condyles and cutting the cruciate ligaments. Medial meniscus horns attach to the tibial plateau in both human and animal joints. However, in contrast to the human lateral meniscus, only the anterior horn of the lateral meniscus in pig and sheep attaches to the tibial plateau. The posterior horn of the lateral meniscus (white arrows in panels e and f) is hanging free after being separated from its insertion to the medial femoral condyle. The anterior horn of the medial meniscus was the most anterior structure across species. Bottom row: shows the morphology of the medial and lateral menisci after complete separation from the joint surface. g Left, human lateral meniscus with symmetrical width from front to back. Right, medial meniscus, which widens gradually towards the back; h the pig lateral meniscus is to the left and the medial meniscus is to the right; i the sheep medial meniscus is to the left and the lateral meniscus is to the right. The scale bars are approximations based on the average measurements of meniscal dimensions as reported in Tables 2, 3 and 4

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