Successful treatment of a humeral capitulum osteonecrosis with bone morphogenetic protein-7 combined with autologous bone grafting

We present the case of a 27-year-old female with subcortical osteonecrosis of the humeral capitulum. Percutaneous retrograde drilling of the lesion and application of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-7 were combined with autologous bone grafting. At follow-up the patient was almost pain-free, had normalized her range of motion, and radiography showed consolidation of the lesion without any heterotopic bone formation. By timing surgery prior to subchondral collapse, biomechanical stability of the subchondral bone was maintained. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the treatment of an osteonecrosis in this location with a BMP, and this strategy could potentially be applied in other locations with juxta-articular osteonecrosis.