[Surgery of genuine Perthes' disease (author's transl)]

134 children between 3 and 13 years of age (average age 6.4 years) were treated at the Orthopaedic Clinic of the Karl-Marx-University at Leipzig between 1955 and 1977, for genuine Perthes' disease. The treatment consisted of bolting the capitular epiphysis (head) of the femur with a homologous bone chip. Anatomical healing was achieved in 50% of the cases. In almost 15% the results were good. The shape of the head was normal or almost normal, and there was merely a slight medium upward displacement of the trochanter without any functional significance. In 30% of the patients, the head was definitely no longer completely round, and there was a coxa vara symptomatic which, in three cases, was the reason for a surgical displacement of the trochanter. In 5--10% of the hip joints, the deformation had resulted in an incongruence of the head and acetabulum. The average treatment period was 17.1 months. The stage of the disease at the time of surgery did not exercise any influence on the duration and results of the treatment. Likewise, the position of the tip of the bone chip did not exercise any definitely appreciable influence.