Purpose: To assess the mid-term result of untreated stable longitudinal tears diagnosed during ACL reconstruction surgery.

Materials and methods: The study comprised 19 patients who had peripheral longitudinal tears of the internal meniscus and 6 with longitudinal tears in the external meniscus, diagnosed during ACL reconstruction surgery. No surgical procedure was applied to these tears. In 14 of the 25 patients, the ACL was reconstructed using RIGIDFIX (Mitek) and in 11 the SWIN-BRIDGE (Citieffe) was used. The mean follow-up was 20.5 months. The clinical evaluation was made using the IKDC score.

Results: None of the 25 patients had to be revised for meniscal problems in the two years after surgery. Three of them were subjected to minor revisions (mobilizations under anesthesia). All patients went back to work after an average of 3.2 months after surgery. 4 patients were classified as belonging to class A in the IKDC score, 16 fell into class B and 5 into class C. None of the patients was rated as belonging to class D.

Conclusions: Conservative treatment of stable longitudinal meniscal tears diagnosed during ACL surgery yields good mid-term results. The number of revisions due to meniscal problems is very small.