Infrapatellar fat pad may be with tendon repairing ability and closely related with the developing process of patella Baja

Abstract

Patella Baja, as a common complication of knee trauma or knee surgery, was very difficult to deal with, and scarring and shortening of the patellar tendon were looked on as the most important reason for it. Infrapatellar fat pad, also known as Hoffa’s fat pad was traditionally regarded as with only buffering and lubricating functions in knee joints, which can limit the knee’s excessive activities, absorb shocks from the anterior knee and reduces friction between the patellar tendon and the tibia, it should be with direct protection function and avoid the damage of patella tendon. Recently, a large number of studies had shown that adipose tissue was an accessible and abundant source of mesenchymal stem cells for tissue engineering. Adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) can be induced to differentiate into adipocytes, osteoblasts, nerve cells, tendon cells and so on. In addition, interestingly, infrapatellar fat pad were just located behind the patellar tendon, and SDF-1 (stromal cell-derived factor-1), as a powerful cytokine that regulates inflammatory cell recruitment and stem cell homing, was unregulated after ligament injury, so there may be a certain correlation between ADSCs from infrapatellar fat pad and injured tendons, maybe ADSCs from infrapatellar fat pad can biologically repair injured tendons when patella tendon was damaged. We hypothesized injured patella tendon repairing should include not only the self-repairing of the tendon, but also the biological repairing from ADSCs in infrapatellar fat pad. When both of the repairing failed to repair the damage of the tendon, patellar tendon may begin to shrink and scar, which will result in patella Baja. In our opinion, healthy infrapatellar fat pad was with direct protection function of patella tendon and full of rich ADSCs, which may play an important part in patella tendon repairing and the developing process of patella Baja.