Symptomatic heterotopic ossification: seven years after patella fracture.

We describe a case of heterotopic ossification (HO) of the lateral patella becoming symptomatic after 7 years following horizontal patella fracture. The patient presented peripatellar pain in full knee flexion and kneeling position. We resected the ossification, and the patient was immediately relieved from pain and was mobilised under full weight bearing with no limitation of knee flexion. The patient was able to return to his previous level of daily activities with no further episodes of pain. To our knowledge, this is the first case of heterotopic peripatellar ossification becoming symptomatic 7 years after a patellar fracture to be reported in the literature.