Risk assessment for femoral head collapse in osteonecrosis utilizing MRI-derived large lesion ratio: a retrospective...

This study aimed to developed a novel and practical method to quantify the involvement of lesion in osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). We hypothesized that the new metric large lesion ratio (LLR) had promising prognostic value.

A total of 131 hips with non-traumatic ONFH were included in this retrospective study. Patient aged 18-60 with MRI-confirmed diagnosis, and a minimum of 2-year follow-up or radiographic collapse progression during follow-up were included. Patients with prior hip surgery, incomplete data or advanced ONFH at baseline (femoral head collapse > 2 mm or osteoarthritis) were excluded. Involvement of necrotic lesion was evaluated by calculating LLR. The differences of LLR between collapse progression and non-progression groups were investigated, and the differences among different scanning parameters groups were also examined. Prognostic value of LLR was examined by multivariate regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) were constructed and areas under the curve (AUC) were compared.

The median of LLR was 66.67% in the collapse progression group, which was significantly higher compared with 25.00% in the non-progression group (P < 0.001). Subgroups analysis showed that LLR were significantly higher in the collapse progression group of Japanese Investigation Committee type C1 (P < 0.001)and C2 (P = 0.002). Multivariate regression showed that LLR were independently correlated with collapse progression (OR, 1.46 [95% CI, 1.24-1.78]; P < 0.001). ROC analysis showed that the AUC for LLR was 0.84, outperforming the 0.74 AUC OF the JIC classification.

LLR could served as a efficient tool to assess the risk of collapse progression and guide the selection of treatment strategy.