This 1995 current-concepts review by Mont and Hungerford synthesizes the etiology, staging, diagnosis, and full treatment spectrum of non-traumatic AVN of the femoral head, using a comprehensive literature analysis to generate evidence-based treatment recommendations across disease stages.
When managing a young patient with hip pain and risk factors (steroids, alcohol, SLE, sickle cell), stage early with MRI and classify using ARCO criteria — precollapse stage I–II disease with ≤30% head involvement is your window for joint-preserving core decompression, which outperforms observation roughly 3:1 in controlled data; once the crescent sign appears or the head collapses, joint-preserving options narrow sharply and outcomes worsen.
This 1995 current-concepts review by Mont and Hungerford synthesizes the etiology, staging, diagnosis, and full treatment spectrum of non-traumatic AVN of the femoral head, using a comprehensive literature analysis to generate evidence-based treatment recommendations across disease stages.
When managing a young patient with hip pain and risk factors (steroids, alcohol, SLE, sickle cell), stage early with MRI and classify using ARCO criteria — precollapse stage I–II disease with ≤30% head involvement is your window for joint-preserving core decompression, which outperforms observation roughly 3:1 in controlled data; once the crescent sign appears or the head collapses, joint-preserving options narrow sharply and outcomes worsen.