Uncommon Causes of Anterior Knee Pain

Abstract

Anterior knee pain is a common symptom, which may have a large variety of causes. Although, patellofemoral malalignment (PFM) is a potential cause of anterior knee pain in young patients, not all malalignments are symptomatic. To think of anterior knee pain as somehow being necessarily tied to PFM is an oversimplification that has positively stultified progress towards better diagnosis and treatment of patients with anterior knee pain syndrome. PFM could be the single culprit for the pain but it is also possible that it bears no relation whatsoever with the patient’s complaint or that it is only partly to blame for the problem. PFM can exist without anterior knee pain, and anterior knee pain can exist without PFM. There are many causes of anterior knee pain, some of them related to PFM and many more not related to PFM. Likewise, we should bear in mind that there are teenage patients with anterior knee pain who lack evidence of organic pathology (i.e., their condition is of a psychosomatic nature [21]) and also patients who suffer from the “malingering syndrome”. In this chapter we analyze uncommon causes of anterior knee pain, emphasizing the fact that not all malalignments are symptomatic.