Determination of the vascularity of the femoral head with technetium 99m-sulphur-colloid.

The results of technetium 99m-sulphur-colloid scans performed at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center and Rancho Los Amigos Hospital to assess the vascular status of the femoral head after sixty-five displaced and thirty undisplaced fractures of the neck of the femur and forty-four traumatic hip dislocations as well as in fifty patients with idiopathic ischemic necrosis of seventy femoral heads were evaluated by histological and clinical examination after follow-up of two years or more. The accuracy of the scan as corroborated by the histological findings and clinical results was 95 per cent. The method is safe, reliable, accurate, and simple in contrast to other methods which have disadvantages related primarily to technical complexities, difficulty in interpretation, and expense.