Biological Bone Plate and Iliac Bone Autograft for Proximal Tibial Slope Changing Osteotomy in Genu Recurvatum

Genu recurvatum (GR) is defined as knee hyperextension greater than 5°, with the normal physiological accepted limits of up to 10 to 15° of extension. Physiological GR is commonly bilateral, symmetrical, and mostly asymptomatic. Pathologic GR is usually asymmetric, symptomatic, and can be congenital or acquired. Acquired GR can be classified according to the origin of the deformity into pure osseous, soft tissue, and combined types. Symptomatic GR can present with anterior knee pain and/or instability. Surgery is generally indicated in symptomatic (pain, instability), pathologic GR with an associated causative correctible deformity (bony, soft tissue, or a combination of both). Tibial slope-reversing osteotomy is indicated for the osseous or mixed types where there is inverted tibial slope. Varu-correcting osteotomy is indicated in the posttraumatic soft-tissue type (posterior and lateral soft-tissue injury as in knee dislocation), the aim of osteotomy is to protect the reconstructed ligaments. No role for osteotomy in the nontraumatic soft tissue type (gradual stretching of the posterior structures). In this article, we describe a technique to correct a unilateral genu recurvatum deformity with inverted tibial slope, mostly due to Osgood-Schlatter disease. Correction is done by performing an anterior open-wedge osteotomy of the proximal tibia and impaction of 2 wedges of autogenous iliac bone grafts within the osteotomy. The proximal portion of the tibia is cut in the coronal plan and is used as a biologic plate for fixation with no need for additional hardware (e.g., plate or staples) for fixation of the osteotomy.