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Introduction
Reconstruction of the medial patellofemoral
ligament (MPFL) for the treatment of patella
instability has achieved increased attention
over the last few years.
Several surgical techniques have been described
which most of them using hamstring tendons as
the graft of choice [2-5, 8, 9].
All of these techniques utilize bone tunnels
and/or anchors for graft fixation on the patella.
Besides implant costs, complications such as
implant breakage or patella fractures through
bone tunnel have been experienced [1, 2, 7].
There are few reports on MPFL reconstruction
using a strip of quadriceps tendon without
anchors or bone tunnels in the patella [6, 10].
Despite very good clinical results, the cosmetic
appearance of longitudinal scars over the thigh
as well as technical difficulties harvesting a
uniform 2-3mm strip of the quadricepstendon
(fig. 1) have not lead to a widespread use of this
techniques.
Therefor we developed a new harvesting
technique for the quadriceps tendon which
allows not only a constant graft harvest with
respect to width and thickness but also is
cosmetically better accepted (only a 2-3cm
transverse skin incision) (fig. 2).
Minimal invasive
reconstruction of the MPFL
using Quadriceps tendon
C. Fink, C. Hoser, M. Veselko
Fig. 1
Fig. 2