Symposium: Operative Treatment of Patellofemoral Arthritis

Arthritis of the patellofemoral joint is typically an extremely debilitating condition and is relatively common. Arthritic changes have been found radiographically in the patellofemoral compartment in isolation in 13.6% to 24% of women and in 11% to 15.4% of men in two studies of subjects who were more than fifty-five and sixty years old, respectively1,2. When only patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee were considered, the prevalence of isolated patellofemoral disease (in patients over fifty-five years old) ranged from 5% to 8%2,3. In a cadaver study of 100 individuals who were more than sixty-five years old at the time of death, 79% had evidence of patellofemoral osteoarthritis, although it was not in isolation4.