The patella in total knee arthroplasty: resurfacing or nonresurfacing of patella.

Data from the Swedish Knee Arthroplasty Registry were analyzed to compare bi- and tricompartmental knee arthroplasties carried out in patients operated on for arthrosis in 1990-1996. Of the 16,607 primary arthroplasties that were carried out there were 5,139 with patellar replacement in the primary procedure and 10,928 without. By April 1998, 280 revisions were performed, 250 of these cases were analyzed in this study. Patella-related complications were commonly the reason for early revision: in 99 of the 168 knees with a primary bicompartmental procedure and in 36 of the 82 knees with a primary tricompartmental procedure. This presentation merely analyzes the extent of patellar problems in knee arthroplasty, as a detailed analysis of the causes of this common problem is not possible using data from a national multicenter study.