Autological bone marrow concentrate for the treatment of early stages of femoral head avascular necrosis (literature review)

Relevance. In the treatment of the early stages of the femoral head osteonecrosis core decompression is widely used, which reduces intraosseous pressure and increases blood flow to the femoral head. To increase the efficiency of the core decompression the use of various bioadjuvants, including concentrate of autologous bone marrow cells is needed, the appropriateness of which is actively discussed.

Purpose of the systematic review: evaluation of the effectiveness of autologous bone marrow cells in core decompression in the treatment of the early stages of the femoral head osteonecrosis according to the literature.

Material and methods. Articles with clinical data in full text in English or Russian available in the Internet (PubMed and elibrary databases) were included in the study. Articles containing actual data on the stage of osteonecrosis, the number of femoral heads operated on, the use of autologous bone marrow cells as an adjunct to the core decompression of the femoral head, the number of ineffective surgical interventions after which total hip arthroplasty was required were included.

Results. Sixteen original articles (2011–2022) were analyzed, and the results of 1135 femoral heads treatment (892 with autologous bone marrow cells, 243 without autologous bone marrow cells, control group) were evaluated. Patient follow-up periods ranged from 9 to 120 months, averaging 45 months. When using autologous bone marrow cells, the need for total hip arthroplasty was observed in 168 of 892 patients (18.8 %); when core decompression was used without autologous bone marrow cells, the rate of total hip arthroplasty was 27.2 % (p > 0.05). Only 2 articles out of 16 authors did not consider autologous bone marrow cells to be reasonable in the core decompression of femoral head.

Conclusion. The use of autologous bone marrow cells concentrate as a bioadjuvant in the core decompression slows the progression of osteonecrosis. According to the overwhelming number of authors, the core decompression using autologous bone marrow cells is highly effective, significantly reducing the intensity of pain syndrome and improving the function of the hip joint. The results will be more encouraging with the further development of regenerative medicine, which will provide new samples of cellular preparations for bone tissue structure restoration.

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