RESEARCH ARTICLE
Patellar Tendon Rupture Following Total Knee Arthroplasty
Steven T. Heer1, James O’Dowd2, Rebecca R. Butler3, David O. Dewitt4, Gaurav Khanna4, Raffy Mirzayan4, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2019Volume: 13
First Page: 239
Last Page: 243
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-13-239
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001913010239
Article History:
Received Date: 09/08/2019Revision Received Date: 16/11/2019
Acceptance Date: 21/11/2019
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2019
Collection year: 2019
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Patellar tendon rupture following Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is rare. There is no consensus on optimal treatment.
Methods:
All patients who underwent a primary repair of a traumatic patellar tendon rupture following a TKA between 2008 and 2016, were retrospectively reviewed. Patient information, implant, repair type (anchor vs. bone tunnel), graft use, and complications were recorded.
Results:
Twenty-six patients met our inclusion criteria. The average age was 69.7+11 years. There were 19 females (73.1%). The average time from TKA to PT rupture was 13.6 months (range: 0- 135 months). The average incidence was 62.32 per 100,000 TKA. PT was repaired with anchors (A) in 9 (4 with a graft) and trans-osseous tunnels (TO) in 12 (5 required graft), and 5 with other methods. There was a significant improvement in KSS from 61 to 83 (P=0.023). There was a significant difference in time from PT tear to surgery in patients with grafts (42 days) and those without grafts (6 days) (P<0.001). Compared to A repair, TO had 2.39 times odds of re-tear (95% CI: 0.38,15.4; P=0.354) and 1.37 times odds of infection (95% CI:0.074,25.6; P=0.83). Repairs with a graft had a 1.90 times odds of re-tear (95% CI: 0.29, 12.19; P=0.49) and 6.3 time odds of infection (95% CI 0.26, 166.7; P=0.25).
Conclusion:
Surgical repair of PT tears following TKA leads to significant clinical improvement, regardless of the fixation method or graft use. We found no difference in outcomes between A and TO repairs and or with graft use.
