Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease: The Clinico-Radiological Analysis of 101 Hips of 89 Patients
10.4055/jkoa.1981.16.2.324
- Author:
In Young OK
;
Yong Koo KANG
;
Myung Sang MOON
- Publication Type:Comparative Study
- Keywords:
Length/Width index;
Migration index;
Spherical quotient
- MeSH:
Acetabulum;
Braces;
Child;
Classification;
Congenital Abnormalities;
Containment of Biohazards;
Epiphyses;
Female;
Femur Neck;
Follow-Up Studies;
Head;
Hip;
Humans;
Joints;
Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease;
Methods;
Neck;
Osteotomy;
Prognosis;
Prospective Studies;
Range of Motion, Articular;
Writing
- From:The Journal of the Korean Orthopaedic Association
1981;16(2):324-336
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
The object of treatment of Legg-Calve-Perthes disease (L.C.P.D.) is to shorten the clinical course and minimize, or prevent residual deformity, This is accomplished by placing the femoral head deeply within the acetabulum, so that its articular surface is completely contained and maintaining a full range of motion, thereby preventing lateral extrusion of head, concentrated vertical loads and collapse. The purpose of this study was to determine the predicting value of prognosis and correlation of three different evaluating methods, when examining an identical series of radiographs to assess the effect of treatments, and to determine whether the result obtained by femoral osteotomy gave better result than those by non-surgical means. During the past ten years prior to writing, 89 patients with L.C.P.D. were treated by authors. Seventy eight (87.6%) patients were boys and 11 (12.4%) girls. Their ages at the time of initial visit ranged from 2 to 13 years. Twelve (13.5%) patients had bilateral and 77 had unilateral involvement for a total of 101 hips. They were analysed according to Catteralls classification, and also comparative study was done for 32 patients who were followed up over 15 months. The longest follow-up was 5 years and 2 months. They were divided into 2 groups: clildren in group A were treated by rest and abduction brace,. followed over 3 years and 3 months in average, and children in group B were treated, by intertro-chanteric osteotomy, followed over 2 years and 6 months in average. End results for 32 cases were evaluated at each follow-up time by Length/Width Index (L/W.I.) of femoral neck (Robichon, 1974), Migration Index (M.I.) and Spherical quotient (S.Q.) of capital femoral epiphysis (Edsberg et al, 1979). L/W.I.,M.I, S.Q. were used not only as the method of evaluation, but also were used as a predicting the prospective clinical course during the treatment by regular measurement whether it takes the good course or not. Results obtained were as follows: 1. 21(20.8%) were classified as group I, 30(29.7%) as group Il. 31(30.7%) as group III and 19 (18.8%) as group IV. 43 children (42.6%) on their initial visit were found to have this diasbling hip condition at stage II (necrosis and early fragmentation stage). 2. Regardless of the type of treatment, good results were obtained in younger children under age of 7 years, and in mild form as in group I, and lI. Also good, results were obtained in the cases who had treatment at early stage of the disease. No difference was found in the end results between girls and boys when they had same degree of head involvement. 3. In 14 surgically-treated patients, the good results were obtained in 9(64.3%) when assessed by L/W I. 10(75.4%) by M.I., and 7(50%) by S.Q., while in 18 conservatively treated patients good results were obtained in 8(44.4%) when assessed by L/W I. in 6(33.3%) by M.I., and 7(38.7%) by S.Q.. This fact means that S.Q. under-estimates the results of well-treated cases, while M.I. seemingly over-estimates them. 4. when X-rays of the hips were taken in different position's, different L/W Indices were unexpectedly obtained; these deviations in assessment may be listed as a drawback. Migration Index can prognosticate the healing process of the disease during treatment, if the index together with medial joint space is measured repeatedly with certain intervals. Also it is difficult to obtain accurately the S. Q. by measurements because of difficulty locating the center of fragmentary head, but it is considered the best method assessing the end-result at the healed stage. S.Q. expresses the head spherocity, while the M. I. expresses the degree of head coverage and the neck L/W.I. expresses the indirectly amount of neck deformity. 5. When the clinical course is assessed by three evaluating methods, occasionally these three results contradict to each other and do not show similar prognostic tendency or trend. The reason is that neck L/W Index and Spherical quotient indicate directly the progress of the disease while Migration Inex receases only the state of femoral head containment and there by indirectly indicates ensuing prospective course when containment is good, and do not indicate the state of severity of the involved head. 6. In this study, the result of surgically treated patients were superior to those of conservatively treated patients.
