448 THE JOURNAL OF BONE AND JOINT SURGERY Current Concepts Review The Treatment of Legg-Calv#{233}-Perthes Disease A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE*

Many reports have been published about the results of treatment of Legg-Calv#{233}-Perthes diseasettt’2’3’5’325. Legg, in 1910, reported on six patients, including one who had been managed operatively2. Since that time, a wide variety of approaches have been tried, including use of casts, calipers, braces, bed rest, weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing, range-of-motion exercises, and even Aureomycin (crystalline chlortetracycline) and hy-perbanic oxygen’’#{176}2’35’263235. These authors have dis-cussed the outcomes of particular forms of treatment, often provided to mixed groups of patients, but the cri-tenia for treatment have been ill defined. Given the various methods of treatment and the lack of uniformity in both the selection of a specific treatment and the criteria for evaluation, it is difficult, if not impossible, t