Relative contribution of epiphyseal tubercle and peripheral cupping to capital femoral epiphysis stability during daily activities

Abstract

Epiphyseal tubercle and peripheral cupping can influence the development of slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) and Cam morphology. During normal skeletal growth, epiphyseal tubercle shrinks while the peripheral cupping grows. We hypothesized that epiphyseal tubercle act as the primary stabilizer of the head-neck junction at early stages and this role is gradually transferred to epiphyseal cupping as the tubercle shrinks and cupping grows. From a cohort of 80 boys and girls (8–15 years old) with normal hips, CT scans of 5 subjects corresponding to minimum, 25th percentile, median, 75th percentile and maximum relative tubercle and cupping height were used to develop 3D finite element models. In vivo measured hip loads were used to study load sharing between the tubercle and peripheral cupping under combined and uniaxial loads exerted on femoral head during a range of daily activities. Lower epiphyseal tubercle height, larger epiphyseal cupping height and bigger differences in tubercle and cupping heights were strongly associated with increased epiphyseal cupping to epiphyseal tubercle stress ratios (R2 > 0.7). We found lower peripheral cupping stresses relative to the tubercle (cupping to tubercle stress ratio <1) in hips with larger tubercle and smaller cupping. The relative decreases in tubercle size along with increased in peripheral cupping in our models gradually shifted the load distribution to higher stresses in the periphery compared to the epiphyseal tubercle area (cupping to tubercle stress ratio >1). Both tubercle and cupping play a substantial role in sharing the generated stresses across the head-neck junction under all tested loading conditions. © 2019 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 37:1571–1579, 2019.