Frequency of different etiological variants of the femoral head osteonecrosis

Introduction. The generally recognized risk factors for osteonecrosis of the femoral head are hip joint trauma, glucocorticoid intake, alcoholism, Gaucher disease, sickle cell anemia, etc.. The incidence of this disease has been studied recently. At the same time, there is no consensus in the literature regarding the contribution of various etiological variants to the development of osteonecrosis of the femoral head.

Purpose of the study: to study the morbidity structure of osteonecrosis of the femoral head with regard to background diseases and risk factors.

Material and Methods 92 patients with osteonecrosis of the femoral head were included in the cross-sectional study. Information was collected by analyzing the archival material and a telephone survey. The patients' somatic status was analyzed, risk factors for osteonecrosis were identified and their contribution to the development of the disease was evaluated. After dividing patients into subgroups (age < 50 years, age ≥ 50 years) the reliability of the values was determined in the STATISTICA program by calculating the p-value by Fisher's exact two-sided test.

Results It was found that the leading causes of osteonecrosis were alcoholism, glucocorticoid use, and trauma of the hip joint, with the frequencies of 20.7%, 17.4%, and 16.3%. The development of femoral head osteonecrosis in the absence of any known predisposing factors was detected with the highest frequency of 35.7%. When analyzing the effect of patient age (< 50 years, ≥ 50 years) on the incidence of risk factors for osteonecrosis of the femoral head, no significant differences were found for any factor.

Conclusion Idiopathic osteonecrosis prevails among the etiological variants in the structure of femoral head osteonecrosis. The most common factors for the femoral head osteonecrosis are alcoholism, glucocorticoid intake and trauma of the hip joint.

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