Introduction
Drawer test is applied to the evaluation of the healthy structure of the knee. The main point of examination is the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament, or the ACL (Singh et al., 2022). In order to perform the test the patient has to be in a specific position: laying on the back and bending knees.
Discussion
The test helps the doctor to determine whether a patient damaged their ACL and to recommend appropriate treatment options. The test can be applied to people from any age groups. In terms of the findings, the test can be positive or negative. If the tibia moves more than what is considered normal, then the test is considered positive, which means that there is an injury of the ACL. Otherwise, the test is considered negative and indicates that the ACL is healthy.
Similarly, the McMurray test is designated to evaluate the knee condition. Its main purpose is to determine whether there are tears in the meniscus of the knee. In order to perform the test, the leg has to be held in the hands with a purpose of rotating the leg and evaluating how normal is the movement (Shekarchi et al., 2020). A positive McMurray test would be confirmed if there is an abnormal sound or crack that follows the respective rotation of the knee.
Conclusion
Naturally, if the rotation is smooth then the test is considered negative which means that there is nothing wrong with the meniscus of the knee. However, certain findings suggest that McMurray test is not as sensitive as other tests (Hashemi et al., 2020). Although in specific cases the test’s sensitivity is relatively low, its specificity is evidently high.
References
Singh, G., Singh, M., & Gupta, P. (2022). Comparison of the lever sign test, anterior drawer test and Lachman test in cases of anterior cruciate ligament tear: A prospective cohort study. Journal of Clinical & Diagnostic Research, 16(4).
Shekarchi, B., Panahi, A., Raeissadat, S. A., Maleki, N., Nayebabbas, S., & Farhadi, P. (2020). Comparison of thessaly test with joint line Tenderness and McMurray test in the diagnosis of meniscal tears. Malaysian orthopaedic journal, 14(2), 94.
Hashemi, S. A., Ranjbar, M. R., Tahami, M., Shahriarirad, R., & Erfani, A. (2020). Comparison of accuracy in expert clinical examination versus magnetic resonance imaging and arthroscopic exam in diagnosis of meniscal tear. Advances in Orthopedics, 2020.