What is Perthes (rhymes with Her’-Sneeze) Disease?
Perthes is AVN of the femoral epiphysis (without a slip) in kids.
The typical patient is a 10 year old boy with a limp.
The cause is not known. The treatment is supportive—non weight bearing to prevent further collapse, maybe, and hope that the epiphysis revascularizes (which can happen).
It is often unilateral.
The older the patient, the worse the prognosis (consider: AVN with collapse in an adult has no cure; the closer one gets to being “adult” the more the disease behaves like the adult form of AVN.)
