Relationship Between The Quadriceps Muscle Stiffness And Patellar Alignment For Healthy People

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Observational

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT04982679

Enrollment

Registered

2021-07-29

Start date

2021-11-26

Completion date

2022-02-09

Last updated

2022-03-16

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Patellofemoral Maltracking

Keywords

muscle stiffness, patellofemoral alignment

Brief summary

Patellofemoral pain is a common disease, and it often couples with patellar malalignment. Previously, imbalance of the different quadriceps muscle heads was believed to be a causative factor of patellar malignment. However, findings from electromyography studies on quadriceps activities and patellar alignment in the last two decades were inconsistent. In order to better understand the relationship between quadriceps muscle imbalance and patellar malalignment, shear wave elastography (SWE), which can measure the passive and active muscle stiffness, may shed some new lights to this area. This study aims to examine whether the quadriceps muscle stiffness can predict the patellar position. The healthy young adult will be recruited in this study. Active and passive quadriceps muscle stiffness will be measured with the SWE in different conditions and the result will be correlated with the patellar position measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Also, electromyography (EMG) activity will be measured during the active stiffness measurement so as to establish the level of agreement between the EMG and SWE data. Linear regression will be used to calculate the relationship between different factors. The total number of subjects needed will be 55 by setting an effect size of 0.15 with two predictors, 80% power, and α at 0.05 in the linear regression. This project will be conducted at PolyU campus and an MRI clinic in Hong Kong. Hopefully, it could be started in July 2021 and will last for 1 year.

Interventions

None listed

Study design

Observational model

CASE_ONLY

Time perspective

CROSS_SECTIONAL

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

18 Years to 45 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

* Healthy and in the range between 18 and 45 years.

Exclusion criteria

* Knee pain in the last 3 months; * Previous history of knee surgery; * People with contraindications to having MRI scanning.

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Patellofemoral Joint Alignment measured by MRI scanning	Within 1 hour	Patellar displacement, patellar Alta/Baja and patellar tilt angle
Muscle stiffness measured by ultragraph using shear wave elastography	Within 1 hour	Raw data of vastus lateralis, rectus femoris and vastus medialis obliquus shear modulus

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Muscle activity measured by electromyography	Within 1 hour	EMG data of vastus lateralis, rectus femoris and vastus medialis obliquus
Muscle strength	Within 0.5 hour	Maximum isometric knee extensor muscle strength at specific joint angle (30 degrees and 60 degrees knee flexion)

Countries

Hong Kong

Outcome results