[Effect of various criteria on the course and therapy result in Perthes disease]

The present treatise gives an account of the courses of illness as well as of the results of a follow-up examination of 116 patients, which have been treated in the period from 1965 to 1980 at the Orthopedic University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf because of a genuine Perthes' disease. Sufficient documented courses are going back to the year 1952. In the centre of interest is the question about the influence of the method of treatment, of the patients' age at the time of giving the diagnosis as well as of the radiological stage of illness at the moment of giving the diagnosis on the course and on the therapeutic result of Perthes' disease. Clinical parameters have been subdivided in the classifications of Renckhoff (1975) as well as of Howorth and Ferguson (1934). The assessment of the radiological results took place according to the classifications of Sundt (1949) as well as of Bauer und Jünger (1977). 4 therapeutic groups, 7 stage of disease and 5 age groups have been differentiated. According to the results of this long-term study at the moment the immediate intertrochanteric varus osteotomy, independent of the radiological stage of disease and of the patient's age, is being looked upon as the best method of treatment for Perthes' disease.