Review of Trillat, Dejour and Couette on ‘Diagnosis and treatment of recurrent dislocations of the patella’

‘Numerous operations have been described for correction of recurrent dislocation of the patella. The number in itself predicates that the problem has not been solved’.This classic discusses the original publication ‘Diagnosis and treatment of recurrent dislocations of the patella’ from Trillat A, Dejour H, Couette A. Published in 1964 at the Revue de Chirurgie Orthopedique et Reparatrice de L'appareil Moteur, where the authors described a surgical procedure modifying Elmslie’s original surgery for patients with objective patellar dislocations and also for patients with anterior knee pain who had the sign of the ‘baïonnette’. Medialisation of the anterior tibial tubercle (ATT) has been known worldwide as the Elmslie-Trillat procedure, but the history of procedure has its roots going back to 1888. The history of the publications of the Elmslie-Trillat technique is really something special. César Roux published in 1888 the original technique that is similar to Elmislie’s procedure. In 1944 in London, Trillat met Selddon and became aware about Elmslie’s procedure for the ATT medialisation. Back to France, Trillat published and named it as the Elmslie’s technique. Later, after the ‘Journées du Genou’, the technique was disseminated as ‘The Elmslie-Trillat’ procedure. Nowadays, isolated ATT medialisation, the ‘true’ Elmslie-Trillat operation, is still occasionally performed. Too few surgeons use these elegant operations largely because the details of the techniques are not taught routinely. This classic section has the objective to encourage young surgeons to learn tibial tubercle transfer operations and the benefits they bring to patients when performed for proper indications.