Medial plica irritation: diagnosis and treatment

Abstract Medial plica irritation of the knee is a very common source of anterior knee pain. Patients can com-plain of pain over the anteromedial aspect of their knees and describe episodes of crepitation, catching, and pseudo-locking events with activities. Patients commonly have pain on physical examination upon rolling the plica fold of tissue over the anteromedial aspect of their knees and often have tight hamstrings. The majority of the patients will respond well to a non-operative treatment program con-sisting of quadriceps strengthening along with concurrent hamstring stretching. In cases which do not respond ini-tially to an exercise program, an intraarticular steroid injection may be indicated. In those few patients who do not respond to a non-operative treatment program, an arthroscopic resection of their medial plica may be indi-cated, especially in those cases where a shelf-like plica has been found to be causing damage to the articular cartilage of the medial femoral condyle