Clinical value of Chinese and western medicine for the treatment of early-stage avascular necrosis of the femoral head

Abstract

Abstract

Background: Informally known as femoral or pelvic head necrosis, avascular necrosis is a disease in which the bone disintegrates  due to a disruption in blood supply to the head of the femur bone. It results in the loss of strength and hardness of the bone, which cannot maintain  the bodyweight  and eventually becomes deformed.

Objective: This study aims to identify Traditional Chinese Medicine's (TCM) therapeutic effect and its interventional therapy for the early-stage treatment of avascular necrosis of the femoral head.

Methods: According to the Fiat system, 19 hips in 97 cases. There is 0 hip at stage 0;8 at phase I; 11 at stage II, which were divided into three groups randomly, namely Group A, B and C. Group A was treated by Chinese medicine; group B was treated by interventional therapy while group C interventional therapy is followed by Chinese medicine. CT and Angiography were done before and after treatment. 

Results:  patients were researched within 1 to 3 years of follow-up after treatment. In group C, Angiography and clinical rate shows an increase in vessel count, which is higher than in group A  and group B (P  <0.01). 

Conclusions: Interventional therapy followed by Chinese medicine is the preferred choice to treat early-stage avascular necrosis of the femoral head. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2021; 35(3): 258-263]

Keywords: femoral head necrosis; a combination of TCM and western medicine; interventional radiology.