Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease

Legg-Calve-Perthes disease is a childhood hip disorder caused by a disruption of blood flow to the head of the femur, the ball-shaped top of the thighbone that forms the hip joint. When that blood supply is interrupted the bone tissue dies and stops growing, weakening the femoral head as it later heals and remodels. It typically presents between ages four and eight, though it can occur anywhere from age two to fifteen, with pain in the hip, knee, ankle, or groin along with limping and reduced range of motion, and it affects boys about four times as often as girls. Roughly one in twenty-five thousand boys and one in one hundred thousand girls are diagnosed, about ten percent of them in both hips. Younger children generally have better outcomes because they have more time for the bone to revascularize and remodel, while children diagnosed after age ten face a higher risk of osteoarthritis in adulthood, and the disease can leave a permanent deformity of the femoral head even after healing.