Osteochondritis dissecans of the elbow joint; a clinical study.

The term osteochondritis dissecans is used in this paper to describe an apparently non-infective condition in which a portion of articular cartilage and underlying bone is slowly separated from its bed. The separation, which is at first partial, may be completed with the formation of one or more loose bodies. It is commonly believed that the incidence of osteochondritis dissecans in the knee is very much higher than in any other joint ; according to Conway (1937) the knee is affected in 85 per cent of cases. The British and American literature has only scant and isolated reference to incidence in the elbow joint, where the condition is regarded as somewhat of a rarity (Murphy 1936). Continental writers, on the contrary, have for the past twenty years recognised a higher incidence in the elbow than in the knee (von Staa 1930, Lohr 1929). We believe that in this country the condition is no less common, and our purpose is to record its main features as we have found them in a study of thirty-eight cases.