[Nonoperative treatment in Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease]

There is still discussion about the indication for and modalities about treatment of Perthes'disease. The main objective of treatment in Perthes'disease is prevention of deformation and malalignment of the hip joint. Most important for the evaluation of any therapy is the long term outcome, therefore we present this retrospective study on nonoperative treatment of perthes disease with orthoses compared to the natural history. 54 Patients with 59 involved hips, treated between 1945-1975 were clinically and radiologically evaluated. We divided the patients into two subgroups: Group 1 with nonoperative therapy. Group 2 with no therapy. The outcome shows correlation of the results with the degree of malalignment and necrosis. There was no statistically significant correlation between the two groups, but a slightly better outcome in the non-operative group compared to the natural history. The use of orthosis may be justified if there is improvement of the containment and reduction of the femoral head, otherwise surgical treatment like pelvic- and hip osteotomies to realign the hip joint should be considered.