A case report of an arthroscopic-assisted fixation of a small Hoffa fracture in a young patient

INTRODUCTION: Hoffa fracture is a type of rare tangential supracondylar distal femoral fracture. The most common mechanism of this fracture injury is high energy trauma. In some cases, its poor visibility on X-rays makes its diagnosis difficult and needs more than routine X-rays. Treatment methods include conventional ORIF, or arthroscopy-assisted fixation as a more challenging method.

CASE REPORT: We present a case of a young female patient who sustained a low energy injury trauma to her left knee, which caused in a small minimally displaced lateral unicondylar Hoffa fracture.

DISCUSSION: Although it needs more experience and special tools, arthroscopy-assisted fixation of Hoffa fracture provides a good method of treatment, and it has many advantages over open method.

CONCLUSION: Our aim here is to confirm that Hoffa fracture may occur even with low energy knee trauma, and that arthroscopy-assisted fixation is a successful, applicable and alternative method to ORIF for small and thin osteochondral fragments, and could provide good stability and union even when using only one screw for fixation.