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What Causes AVN?
When people get diagnosed with avascular necrosis, they often have never heard of it and have no idea what it means. AVN is a disease of blood supply to the bone. The term is avascular simply means no blood supply, while the term necrosis means tissue death. So therefore, avascular necrosis is tissue death due to a lack of blood supply.
This loss can occur for many different reasons, and as a result, the bone starts to starve from a lack of blood supply. The most common cause for AVN is actually idiopathic, which means the cause is unknown. Other known causes include steroid use, excessive alcohol use, trauma, and blood disease like sickle cell disease.
Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr. Adam Saad of the Institute for Advanced Reconstruction at The Plastic Surgery Center treats the cause of AVN by bringing new healthy tissues with new blood supply to the starving bone. This AVN treatment can obviate the need for a hip replacement and allow the bone to heal itself. Through the use of microsurgery, Dr. Saad can re-establish the blood flow lacking in the occurrence of AVN.
To see if you are a candidate for the avascular necrosis program at the Institute for Advanced Reconstruction, please fill out the patient contact form.
