The joint between patella and femur (knee cap and thigh bone) forms an important part of the normal kinematics of the knee joint. This is an essential mechanism to decrease the workload and force at the knee joint and helps in increased mobility at lesser energy consumption.

The PF joint is essentially acts as a lever and decreases work of bending at the knee. Any lesion on the undersurface of the patella which may be secondary to injury, chondromalacia or degenerative change may lead to a painful movement at the knee joint. This can also be felt as a fine grating sensation on movements of knee.

Patients typically have severe pain on knee bending over 90 degrees and complian of severe pain on movement after a period of inactivity (movie goer's sign). Typical retropatellar pain can also be caused due to a patello-femoral pain syndrome or mal alignment of mechanical and anatomical axis of weight bearing.

The main surgical procedures/indications of th PF joint include:

• Diagnostic scopy
• Osteochondral defect microfracture
• Osteochondral defect OATS
• Chondromalacia

Post arthroscopy, alignment correction procedures can be done using:

• MPFL reconstruction
• Lateral retinacular release
• Trochleoplasty
• Tibial tuberosity transfer
• Notchplasty

For more information please feel free to contact our orthopedic or physiotherapy team.