Intra-articular horizontal dislocation of the patella: a rare injury and review of the literature

Acute traumatic intra-articular dislocation of the patella is not a common presentation in orthopaedic practice; less frequently observed than extra-articular dislocation of the patella. In some of these cases, closed reduction is not possible and an open reduction in the operating theatre must be performed. In this case report, we present an elderly patient with an intra-articular horizontal dislocation of the patella without any other bony or ligamentous lesions seen in a postreduction MRI. We conducted a literature review looking at intra-articular patella dislocations, identifying 64 published studies (articles, case reports and papers). The following sources of data were searched until December 2017: PubMed, OVID, Google Scholar, Scopus, using the search strategy of (intra-articular dislocation of patella, horizontal patellar dislocation) with no limitation on the year or language of publication. The patient presented in this case report was managed with a closed reduction under general anaesthesia, without the need of any surgical intervention. As proposed in the literature, the hypothesis of an intra-articular entrapment of the patella due to the trapped osteophytes of the superior pole of the patella into the intercondylar notch was thought to be the cause of intra-articular dislocation in this elderly patient.