[Post-traumatic knee degeneration]

Degenerative changes and arthritis are one of the most important sequelae after knee injury. The reasons of deterioration of the cartilage are different in each injury. After fractures the most important pejorative factors are incongruity of the articular surface and malunion specially in varus deformities. With long term follow up the arthrosis is observed between 15 and 50%, dependent of the localisations and the gravity of the injury. After menisco-ligamentous injury the kinematic of the knee is disturbed and the medial femoro-tibial compartment is too overlead specially when the meniscus was resected and when the patient has a morphology in genu varum. With long term follow up the arthrosis is observed between 15 and 20%. The early repair of the anterior cruciate ligamentous and the "meniscal economy" can predict significative decrease. The treatment of this knee post-traumatic arthrosis is essentially based on the good balance of frontal femoro-tibial stress by osteotomy. When the osteo-ligamentous lesions are diffuse and important, it's possible to propose a semi-contained total prosthesis.