Treatment of chondromalacia patella

I believe that professional athletes and people who like to exercise regularly must know what patellar chondromalacia is. Its occurrence may end an athlete's sports career. The reason why chondromalacia patella is so serious is that it damages the cartilage of the knee joint. If the cartilage is broken, you should not engage in excessively strenuous exercise.

The common clinical causes of patellar chondromalacia can be roughly divided into two types. One is the biomechanical reason, that is, the knee joint is directly injured, and the other is the biochemical reason, that is, the patient's own factors. However, no matter what causes patellar chondromalacia, we hope that patients can pay attention to the treatment of patellar chondromalacia. The treatment of this disease includes non-surgical treatment and surgical treatment:

1. Non-surgical treatment

For those with mild symptoms, be careful to avoid direct impact on the patella and reduce patellar friction activities, such as going up and down mountains, going up and down stairs, riding a bicycle, etc., and the symptoms may be alleviated.

2. Surgical treatment

(1) Patellar cartilage removal includes superficial cartilage cutting, cutting cartilage to reach bone and bone drilling. ① Superficial cutting of cartilage: Use a sharp knife to cut the degenerated cartilage until the normal part of the cartilage. Although the cartilage repair ability is very weak after shallow cutting, after the eroded cartilage is removed, the surface becomes smooth and covered with several layers of flat cells after several months of shaping, making the operation achieve more satisfactory results. ② Cutting cartilage to bone. If the cartilage damage has reached the bone, the entire layer of cartilage can be cut, and the edge of the wound can be trimmed to form a bevel, leaving the exposed bone untreated. Full-thickness cartilage defects that do not reach the medullary cavity can be slowly regenerated endogenously, and the regenerated cartilage is hyaline cartilage. ③ Cut the cartilage to the bone and drill to remove the full-thickness of the diseased cartilage. Drill several holes in the exposed bone with Kirschner wires to cause bleeding in the bone bed. The full-thickness defect of the articular cartilage deep into the medullary cavity can be repaired exogenously from the medullary cavity mesenchymal tissue.

(2) After the diseased cartilage is removed during patellar plasty, if the bone is exposed to a large extent (2 to 3 cm), the exposed bone surface can be covered with the adjacent synovium or a layer of fat pad that has been cut and flipped over and sutured.

(3) Patellar resection is recommended for patients who are older, have severe symptoms, have a large exposed bone area (more than 3 cm), and have relatively large wear of the femoral cartilage. Patellar resection may be considered for patients who are unable to undergo patellarplasty.

The two methods mentioned above are the main treatments for chondromalacia patellae nowadays. The treatment method should be selected according to the severity of the patient's symptoms. For athletes, in order to avoid the occurrence of chondromalacia patellae, they must pay attention to protecting their knee joints during normal exercise to avoid trauma and other damage to the knee joints.