Percutaneous cerclage wiring for the surgical treatment of displaced patella fractures

The patella plays an important role in the knee joint extension, and a patella fracture requires surgical treatment when it is accompanied by displacement of bone fragments and a joint surface gap. In patella fractures, there is disruption of the soft tissue structures that support the knee extension mechanism. We use a method of percutaneous cerclage wiring to fix the patella and include the peripatellar soft tissues in five patients. All cases were closed fractures, and the AO classification was type A in 1 and type C in 4. At a mean follow-up of 11.2 months, union was achieved in four cases with failure in one inferior pole fracture avulsion. There was no extensor lag noted in any patient, with mean flexion at 141° (120–160). As this percutaneous cerclage wiring method includes soft tissue approximation in the wiring, it may be especially suitable for comminuted fractures for which classic tension band wiring techniques cannot be used. We employed this procedure to atraumatically manipulate peripatellar soft tissues together with the fracture fragments in order to obtain optimal restoration of continuity of the extensor mechanism.