The role of imaging in knee pathology: Current state and future prospects

Knee trauma account for the majority of the lesions of the knee and is an increasing cause of access to the ER in an international scenario where the common effort is to reduce the costs of healthcare . Despite being so common, trauma is not the only cause of knee-involving disease: tumor, hereditary disease, idiopathic illness and rheumatological conditions may affect this marvelous joint as well.While traditional diagnostic tools like x-ray or ultrasounds seems to have expressed their full potential already, more recent imaging techniques appear to offer unprecedent possibilities. The new aim of modern radiology is to wisely employ latest technologies available both as a complementary approach to older diagnostic method and as a springboard to new diagnostic horizons, combining clinical knowledge and laboratory findings to the imaging interpretation. In this study we tried to focus reader’s attention toward classical radiological findings of well-known common, and not so common, disease while exploring the new fields that MRI is unveiling and that may seem to be extraordinary today but may become common and widely spread in just a few years.