Our Experience with Patello femoral joint replacement: 153 cases

BACKGROUND: Ten to fifteen percent of knee arthritis is reported to be isolated patellofemoral arthritis. Total knee arthroplasty is not recommended for isolated patella femoral arthritis particularly in young patients. We present the retrospective review our series in 7 years. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this presentation is to describe our experience in the management of patellofemoral osteoarthritis with the use of the partial patellofemoral arthroplasty, as well as to delineate the pitfalls and causes of revision in our initial series of 153 cases. METHODS: between 2009 and 2016, our group performed 157 patellofemoral arthroplasties (PFA) 74% being in women, and 26% in men, the mean age for women was 58 yrs. And 38 yrs. for men, our initial 13 cases were managed with the Avon prosthesis (Stryker Corporation Kalamazoo, Michigan), and then we switched to the Vanguard PF (Zimmer-Biomet Warsaw In), both systems are an On-Lay design that is more flexible for addressing dysplastic trochleas that are more common in our population. RESULTS: We performed a Knee Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) for the assessment of the success of the procedure and obtained 87% of patients with excellent results (95 to 100), 10% with fair results (70 to 90) and 3% with poor outcomes (50), we performed a total of 3 revisions due to pain or progress to global arthritis. CONCLUSION: The PFA is a successful, safe and reproducible surgery that can be used in the group of patients that have isolated patellofemoral osteoarthritis. It requires a thorough knowledge of the patello femoral joint biomechanics, and physiopathology.