 A new preclinical animal model study has identified biomarker panels that might be useful predictors and indicators of outcomes after meniscus allograft transplantation, or MAT. These biomarkers may enable real-time assessment of graft survival after surgery. The findings are published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. Meniscal tears and degeneration, or partial menuskectomy surgeries intended to alleviate these issues, can cause meniscal deficiency. In meniscal deficiency, lack of a complete meniscus increases stress to the knee joint, contributing to pain, dysfunction, and osteoarthritis. Restoring the meniscus through strategies like MAT can prevent these issues. However, there are currently no methods for predicting and evaluating MAT graft success or failure in real time. To help develop such a method, researchers searched for biomarkers of MAT outcomes in a dog model. First, they induced meniscal deficiency in dogs through arthroscopic medial meniscal release surgery. Three months later, they performed MAT to replace the dog's medial menisci. They used three types of allografts. Fresh frozen menisci, fresh menisci, and fresh menisco-tibial osteocondrial allografts to potentially induce a range of outcomes. The researchers measured the levels of various proteins in the dog serum and urine at 1, 3, and 6 months after MAT to see if any of them correlated with functional or pain related outcomes measured at six months. The primary functional outcome was the Total Pressure Index of the Operated Limb, or %TPI. The primary pain related outcome was a score based on a visual analogue scale. The results revealed four panels of biomarkers in serum or urine that were associated with the %TPI or pain score. Included in the panels were molecules related to cartilage degeneration, inflammation, and bone turnover, suggesting the importance of these processes for clinical outcomes of MAT. Notably, this study was performed on dogs, so the findings do not necessarily apply directly to humans. In addition, the number of animals used was relatively small and the study was limited to six months. Furthermore, the list of biomarkers selected for testing was not exhaustive, and the panels were not externally validated. Nevertheless, the findings identify specific biomarker panels that might be useful for predicting and monitoring recovery after MAT. Because the identified biomarkers are present in serum and urine, they can be collected in a minimally invasive manner to provide real-time feedback on treatment success or failure. Ultimately, such feedback might improve patient selection, treatment personalization, and functional outcomes of MAT.