Does the appearance of the patellofemoral joint at surgery influence the clinical result in medial unicompartmental knee arthroplasty?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the likelihood of unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) in patients with chondrosis in the patellofemoral joint. We evaluated the pain and functional changes in the patellofemoral joint of 62 patients who underwent medial UKA for medial compartmental osteoarthritis with symptoms in the patellofemoral joint. They were analyzed by the patellofemoral score of Lonner at postoperative 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years prospectively. Preoperatively, the grade by total score was poor in all 62 cases, but it was improved to 36 excellent (58%), 16 good (26%), and 10 fair (16%), and there were no poor cases at 2 years. The last follow-up showed satisfactory results in pain score, function score, and total score (p < 0.05). Regarding this result, we believe chondrosis in the patellofemoral joint is not a contraindication to UKA, even in patients with patellofemoral joint symptoms.