[Comparative clinical and arthroscopic study of the knee joint in chondromalacia patellae].

It is not easy to perform clinical diagnosis of chondromalacia patellae. Many cases take a clinically silent course and are discovered by chance only. Analysis for 275 arthroscopies resulted in almost complete agreement between clinical and arthroscopic diagnosis if the damage to the cartilage was diagnosed before arthroscopy. On the other hand, in chondromalacia that remained clinically silent, damage to the cartilage was present in 67% of the cases as detected by arthroscopy. The authors offer detailed comments on the problem of localisation of cartilaginous changes.