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Perthes' disease

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Perthes' disease is a form of idiopathic osteonecrosis (or osteochondrosis) of the femoral head in childhood (1).

  • characteristically there is avascular necrosis of the epiphysis resulting in impaired endochondral ossification of the femoral head (2)
  • it occurs principally in boys aged between 5 and 12 (3)

Presentation is with pain and limping, usually affecting just one hip, but occasionally both, developing over a month (1)

Reference:

  1. Dillman JR, Hernandez RJ. MRI of Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2009;193(5):1394-407.
  2. Nelitz M, Lippacher S, Krauspe R, Reichel H. Perthes Disease Current Principles of Diagnosis and Treatment Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2009 July; 106(31-32): 517–523.
  3. Taghi Karimi, McGarry T.  A Comparison of the Effectiveness of Surgical and Nonsurgical Treatment of Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease: A Review of the Literature. Adv Orthop. 2012; 2012: 490806.

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