[Diagnosis and therapy of traumatic patellar dislocation in the athlete]

Abstract

Traumatic dislocations of the patella usually occur in sport activities. The review of our in-patient collective between 1980 and 1985 showed twenty traumatic dislocations of the patella among 1106 sport injuries. Most patients were adolescents. Seventeen of these injuries resulted from a typical valgus-flexion-external rotation-mechanism. Only three cases followed direct trauma. The therapy of choice in fresh traumatic dislocations of the patella in sportsmen is a suture of the medial retinaculum and if necessary refixation of osteochondral fragments. We performed operative treatment in sixteen of our own patients.