Patellar Instability —The Great Imitator

Many diseases in medicine have been dubbed “Great Imitators” to include syphilis and, more recently, Lyme disease. In the orthopedic world, patellar instability can be added to that list. I recently offered to see a young athlete who injured his knee. He was from the high school football team that my partner takes care of. He had an effu sion and was difficult to examine, so I assumed that he had an ACL injury, sent the boy off for an MRI, and arranged for follow-up with him. I later learned that the player actually had a patellar dislocation and had a TT-TG measurement of 25 mm.
Source: Clinics in Sports Medicine - Category: Sports Medicine Authors: Tags: Foreword Source Type: research