Imaging assessment of anterior knee pain and patellar maltracking

Anterior knee pain is a common complaint in the orthopaedic clinic. The dif ferential diagnosis is wide and the principal goal of initial assessment is to detect remediable causes. The majority of patients do not have a specif ic disease and increasingly interest has focused on the role of patello-fem oro-tibial morphology and of patellar maltracking in the aetiology of anter ior knee pain. Classification in this group of patients is poor and there i s no uniform agreement on which patient groups benefit from treatment and w hich treatment is best. Much of the literature involves relatively small nu mbers of patients, is poorly controlled and there is little agreement on ou tcome measures [1, 2]. The purpose of this review is to outline the current status of the imaging assessment of recalcitrant anterior knee pain with p articular reference to patellar maltracking.