Objective To analyze the diagnostic value of magnetic resonance GRE-T2* sequence in knee meniscus tear. Methods The clinical datum of 310 patients with knee joint meniscus tear admitted into the hospital from January 2012 to June 2014 were collected. All patients received FSE-T2WI-FS, GRE-T2*, FSE-PDWI-FS and FSET1WI sequence scanning of 1.5T superconducting magnetic resonance scanner sagittal view. The application value of different sequences scanning in the diagnosis of knee meniscus tear was compared. Results GRE-T2* sequence, there were 297 cases with class 2 in clarity rating of knee meniscus tear and clear image display accounted for 95.81%. Compared with the image quality of other three kinds of sequence, the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05); There were 309 cases with knee meniscus tear detected by GRE-T2* sequence in total and the detection rate was 99.68%; Compared with that of the other three sequences, the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusion In the clinical diagnosis of knee meniscus tear, to adopt MRI to spoiled GRE-T2* sequence can clearly show the structure type of knee meniscus tear and improve the detection rate of meniscus lesions and can be taken as the conventional sequence for MRI detection of knees.