The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Vol 76, Issue 2 224-229, Copyright © 1994 by Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc
Evaluation of physeal behavior in response to epiphyseodesis with the use of serial magnetic resonance imaging
M Synder, HT Harcke, JR Bowen and PA Caro
Alfred I. duPont Institute, Wilmington, Delaware 19899.
The stages in the closure of the growth plate after percutaneous
epiphyseodesis were studied in fourteen patients (eight girls and six boys)
with coronal T1-weighted spin-echo images and coronal field-echo images of
the knee. A total of thirty-three magnetic-resonance imaging studies of the
knee were made the first week, the fourth month, the eighth month, or one
year after the epiphyseodesis. A mature bridge of bone was seen at the
operative sites approximately eight months after the operation. In the
central undisturbed area between the operative sites, there was a
progressive decrease in the width of the physeal cartilage that remained
visible eight months after the operation. Growth recovery lines were not
seen postoperatively in any patient, and the physis closed in all of the
patients. The physis of the adjacent untreated bone served as a control
bone and showed neither a change in width nor any growth recovery lines.
Magnetic resonance-imaging studies provide excellent visualization of the
anatomical changes that lead to closure of the physis after an
epiphyseodesis, and we believe that these studies provide a method of
assessment of the physis after an injury.