Rotational knee strain resulting in patellar dislocation. An experimental study in rabbits.

The right lower extremities of 64 young rabbits were immobilized by a plaster spica. The animals developed a gait pattern, which included internal tibial rotation and adduction of the left (unimmobilized) tibia. Twenty-one of the animals developed medial patellar dislocation in the unimmobilized lower extremity. The mechanism of the patellar dislocation in this experimental model was possibly overstretching of the lateral colateral ligament and the lateral side of the joint capsule, associated with medial rotation of the tibia and the tibial tubercle. The direction of patellar pull when gliding inferiorly during knee flexion was shifted medially, resulting in patellar dislocation and secondarily, in formation of an exostosis under the displaced patella. Hip arthrodesis in humans, as a course of rotational instability of the contralateral knee, resembles some aspects of this experimental condition.