Venous engorgement and intraosseous hypertension in osteoarthritis of the hip.

Many investigators have considered that local vascular changes may be important in the etiology and pathogenesis of degenerative arthritis, but opinions differ as to the nature of these changes. Several authors have suggested that osteoarthritis is accompanied or preceded by a state of ischaemia of subchondral and juxtachondral bone (Wollenberg 1909; Goldhaft, Wright and Pemberton 1930; Phemister 1940: Cheynel 1947; Pridie 1952). This conception was challenged by Harrison, Schajowicz and Trueta (1953). They found in injection studies on cadavers a hyperplasia of intraosseous arteries in the femoral head, and on the basis of these observations they assumed that the arterial inflow to the weight-bearing cancellous bone was increased in osteoarthritis.