Treatment of symptomatic Freiberg's disease by resection arthroplasty

Freiberg’s disease is osteochondrosis or a vascular necrosis of metatarsal head. In many cases treatment is no operative. In patients who fail no operative treatment, surgical treatment may be offered. In this article, we studied surgical treatment with resection arthroplasty of metatarsophalyngeal joint in patients with unsuccessful no operative treatment. Resection arthroplasties of metatarsophalyngeal joint were performed in 16 patients with Freiberg’s disease and unsuccessful no operative treatment between 2001 and 2007. In all patients, second metatarsophalyngeal joint involved. The average of follow up was 34 months (12-56). There were 12 female (75%) and 4 male (25%) patients with an average age of 25 years (range 18-40). There were excellent outcome in 12 (75%), good in 2 (12.5%) and moderate in 2 (12.5%) cases. Surgical treatment with metatarsophalyngeal joint resection arthroplasty has very good result in patients with Freiberg’s disease that conservative treatments have failed.