Could percutaneous femoral head arthroplasty using calcium phosphate cement be a novel therapeutic method for late-stage Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease?

Abstract

Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease (LCPD) belongs to the category of aseptic osteochondroses of childhood which is characterized by idiopathic avascular osteonecrosis of the femoral head which can cause severe deformity of hip joint such as coxa plana and ‘flattening femoral head'. As the harmonious structural relation of hip joint was broken, osteoarthritis of hip joint could be always observed in patients about 50 years old which finally needs to be treated with total hip replacement. In present most methods yield markedly to achieve good clinical results when dealing with late-stage of LCPD mainly because of inability of reconstruction of spherical shape of femoral head. So the direct urgent thing should be to find one way out to completely reconstruct the spherical shape of femoral head. By the enlightenment of percutaneous vertebroplasty (PKP) and biological properties of calcium phosphate cement (CPC), we hypothesize that percutaneous femoral head arthroplasty using CPC can solve the problem of reconstruction of spherical framework of femoral head in late-stage LCPD and pave a brand-new way to achieve excellent clinical results in patients of late-stage LCPD.