avascular necrosis

[Neats, BSN]

My son has avascular necrosis of the ankle, stage 2, while serving in Iraq. Great teaching tool for me while in nursing school. I have done my research and cannot find any new research methods of treatment.

Does anyone know of any new methods other then the standard decompression, surgery and conservation tx ie reduce pressure? Or is this all the gold standard?

Thank you all in advance for your replies

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

This is bordering on asking for medical advice...but if it were my child (age doesn't matter does it?) I'd see about getting him to a sports medicine orthopaedist. Other than that I really can't say other than keep checking medscape and the orthopaedic nurses website orthonurse.org

[andyxx]

There is a great article on AVN of the talus (bottom ankle bonee) on the http://avnresources.com non profit website. Here is the direct link. http://avnresources.org/?q=node/63 This is a very new article. Hope this helps.

[Neats, BSN]

Oh Thank you so very much for sending me this. My son had his surgery...a bone graft (OATS procedure) at the Seattle VA. Doctors from U of Washington performed the surgery and even brought over the needed equipment. So far it has been sucessful although my son C/O pain upon waking in the am while ambulating, the pain level often goes from a 6 to a 3 as the day goes on. He is so young to have arthritis at age 22. I as a nurse watch his condition carefully and question the doctors who my son follows up with. I would like to see evidenced based studies of patients a year after surgery to see how they are doing/coping. Again Thank you so much for this information.