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Osteonecrosis of the femoral head: treatment with ancillary growth factors

  • Modern Surgical Treatment of Hip Avascular Necrosis (MA Mont, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Osteonecrosis (ON) of the femoral head, also known as avascular necrosis (AVN) of the femoral head, is a progressive disease that predominantly affects younger patients. During early stage of ON, decompression of the femoral head has been commonly used to improve pain. The decompression has been augmented with nonvascularized or vascularized bone grafts, mesenchymal stems cells, and growth factors. The use of adjuvant growth factors to supplement the core decompression has mainly been limited to animal models in an attempt to regenerate the necrotic lesion of ON. Factors utilized include bone morphogenetic proteins, vascular endothelial growth factors, hepatocyte growth factors, fibroblast growth factors, granulocyte colony-stimulating factors, and stem cells factors. In animal models, the use of these factors has been shown to increase bone formation and angiogenesis. Although promising, the use of these growth factors and cell-based therapies clinically remains limited.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently have been highlight as: • Of importance

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Matthew T. Houdek and Cody C. Wyles declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Rafael J. Sierra reports personal fees from Biomet.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Correspondence to Rafael J. Sierra.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Modern Surgical Treatment of Hip Avascular Necrosis

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Houdek, M.T., Wyles, C.C. & Sierra, R.J. Osteonecrosis of the femoral head: treatment with ancillary growth factors. Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med 8, 233–239 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12178-015-9281-z

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