Q: One of my colleagues just heard Dr. Chow speak at a conference last week and was very impressed. I am a Physical Therapist who has Grade IV patellofemoral changes bilaterally. Does Dr. Chow do patellofemoral replacments?
A: The quick answer is “yes”: I do robotically-assisted limited patellofemoral (PF) replacements.
To more fully answer your questions: I would need to thoroughly evaluate your knees prior to commiting to a limited PF replacement. The reason is that limited PF disease is not easily corrected. PF replacements, in particular, have a relatively poor track-record in our orthopaedic history. Most joint specialists will recommend a total knee replacement for limited PF arthritis, simply because it is the most reliable procedure for the problem.
There are many more related factors that play in sucessful PF replacements: presence of lateral patellar compression syndrome, a tight lateral PF ligament, instabilty of the PF joint, past PF trauma, past re-alignment procedures, extreme natural knee malalignment, etc… just to name a few.
