RESUMO
Osteonecrosis of the femoral head(ONFH), a refractory disease characterized by death of the osteocytes and the bone marrow due to inadequate blood supply caused by various mechanisms, usually leads to the collapse of the femoral head and malfunction of the hip joint. The crux is to diagnose ONFH early in the precollapse stage and prevent subsequent progression of collapsing through early interventions, thus delaying or avoiding the replacement of the hip joint. A number of joint salvaging operation treatments for early stage ONFH are available. However, there has been no consensus with regard to the ideal treatment. The main trend now is to unite core decompression with bone-grafting, tantalum rod, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell (BMSC) and other treatments. Also there are ways of osteotomy altering the angle of the femoral neck to relocate necrotic tissue from the weight-bearing segment. The implanting of tantalum rod remains controversial and the advent of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell (BMSC) holds huge potential.