Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging in Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease.

We employed nuclear magnetic resonance imaging in the evaluation of fourteen children with Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, and found that it accurately identified infarction of the femoral head and, with appropriate techniques, could produce an arthrogram-like image of the hip without the use of ionizing radiation or injection of a contrast agent. Partial saturation-recovery and inversion-recovery pulse sequences with two-dimensional Fourier transformation produced the best results. Nuclear magnetic resonance scanning provides a noninvasive method for the study of the contours of the hip joint, and may give clearer insight into the pathophysiology of infarction and revascularization.