title: Bilateral Anterior Knee Pain in a High School Cross-Country Runner: An Atypical Etiology.
abstract: Anterior knee pain is a common complaint found in distance runners, and can be the end result of a variety of benign processes. A 17-year-old female cross-country runner presented to a sports medicine clinic with insidious onset of bilateral patellofemoral pain (PFP). In the workup of the significant quadriceps weakness discovered on her initial examination, a principal contributing cause of her PFP, she was found to have a form of spinal muscular atrophy, an uncommon neurodegenerative disease that typically requires multidisciplinary medical care. Her case provides a good example for clinicians to consider, at times, an in-depth assessment of the root causes of benign conditions.
authors.affiliation: Division of Sports Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, Ohio.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: MacDonald
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D056352:Athletes; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000503:physiopathology; D009134:Muscular Atrophy, Spinal / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D046788:Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome / Q000209:etiology*; D012420:Running