Patellar chondropathy
Cartilage injury
Patellar chondropathy is the disease or injury of the articular cartilage of the patella that is manifested by pain localized in the front of the knee.
Cause
The patellar injury also called patellar femoral syndrome, is one of the most frequent traumatic processes, especially in athletes, and is due to multiple causes. The inflammation is also known with the phrase “knee of the jumper”, because it is mainly the athletes who strain the knee, putting it under stress with the jumps; for this reason among the sportsmen involved we find volleyball players and basketball players.
Among the causes include: repeated trauma to the knee, and the overhead of repetitive motions for a long period of time, which leads to compression of the cartilage; structural factors such as the alignment of the knee or the position of the patella; metabolic factors such as a lack of vascularization of the bone under the cartilage; pathological factors such as the degeneration of the cartilage.
Diagnosis
It often happens that there is no specific correlation between pain and anatomical damage and therefore the diagnosis may initially not be intuitive: for example we can be faced with very painful and disabling processes that see minimal involvement of cartilage.
For diagnosis, MRI with contrast is useful for detecting advanced lesions.
The definitive diagnosis of patellar chondropathy is made by arthroscopy that assesses the condition of the cartilage or the existence of lesions not detected before with MRI or when the pain persists despite the measures put in place to contain it.
Treatments
The first step of treatment lies in solving the factors that trigger or aggravate the condition: knee misalignment, patella, obesity, meniscopathy.
The second step is a medical treatment, through oral or intra-articular analgesics, and physical therapy to improve the muscles. Physical rehabilitation is often recommended since patellar chondropathy is often accompanied by patello-femoral instability.
Osteoplus® therapy with biostimulating action acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and stimulating the profiling of cartilage.
Where conservative treatment does not produce the desired effects, surgical therapy is recommended
