Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Alcoholic avascular necrosis of femoral head results in femoral head collapse at late stage, which has high disability and lack of effective prevention and treating methods. Thus, it has aroused increasing attention all over the world. To establish animal alcoholic avascular necrosis of femoral head model is a direction of studying pathogenesis and clinical prevention of this disease.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize of research progress of alcoholic avascular necrosis of the femoral head.
METHODS: PubMed and China journal full-text databases were searched by computer for articles regarding alcoholic avascular necrosis of the femoral head published from January 1990 to January 2010 with key words of “alcohol intoxication, avascular necrosis, animal model and research progress” both in English and Chinese. The reproducibility or obsolete study was excluded. 
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: A total of 151 literatures were collected, and 30 articles were included in the analysis. Based on rats and rabbits animals such as binge drinking alcohol, femoral or local intervention can lead to increased femoral intramedullary fat cells and blood vessels, small quantity or obstruction of small vessels, result in microcirculation disturbance and ischemia or anoxia, finally, become necrosis. This mechanism was close to early pathological changes of human avascular necrosis. Combining domestic alcoholic avascular necrosis of animal model, using gastric lavage method, given by China rabbit spirited Chinese liquor (including ethanol 55%) 8 mL/(kg•d), for 4-8 weeks. The method is more suitable for the current domestic experiments.