Bone-grafting for severe patellar bone loss during revision knee arthroplasty

Background: Severe patellar bone loss may preclude adequate fixation of ano ther patellar prosthesis as a part of revision knee replacement. The purpos e of this study was to describe the surgical technique and early clinical r esults of an alternative to the conventional treatment options of either pa tellectomy or retention of the remaining patellar osseous shell. The goals of this procedure are to restore patellar bone stock and potentially to imp rove the functional outcome. Methods: Severe patellar bone loss had left a "patellar shell" that preclud ed insertion of another patellar implant in nine of 100 consecutive knees u ndergoing revision total knee arthroplasty. Rather than performing a patell ectomy or simply retaining the patellar osseous shell in these nine knees ( eight patients), I performed a surgical procedure in which a tissue flap wa s secured to the patellar rim to contain cancellous bone graft inserted int o the patellar bone defect. Final follow-up was at a mean of 36.7 months (r ange, twenty-four to fifty-five months) after the patellar bone-grafting pr ocedure. Results: The mean preoperative Knee Society scores for function and pain we re 39 points (range, 18 to 82 points) and 40 points (range, 20 to 80 points ), respectively. At the time of final follow-up, the Knee Society function and pain scores had improved significantly, to a mean function score of 91 points (range, 80 to 98 points) and a mean pain score of 84 points (range, 65 to 100 points) (p < 0.05). The point of greatest patellar thickness meas ured intraoperatively ranged from 7 to 9 mm. Patellar thickness on immediat e postoperative Merchant radiographs averaged 22 mm (range, 20 to 25 mm) wh ereas, at the time of final follow-up, patellar thickness averaged 19.7 mm (range, 17 to 22.5 mm). Conclusions: In contrast with other treatment alternatives, this surgical p rocedure imparts the potential for restoring patellar bone stock and may im prove functional outcome by facilitating patellar tracking and improving qu adriceps leverage. On the basis of satisfactory short-term to mid-term clin ical results, this technique of patellar bone-grafting appears to be an imp ortant addition to the armamentarium of surgeons performing revision knee a rthroplasties.