Three cases of an unusual, poorly recognized destructive hip arthropathy with radiographic findings of rapid severe joint destruction are presented. Case 1: An 81 year-old female presented with hip pain of 3 months duration and radiographs showed a rapidly destructive appearance of the femoral head. The patient had no clinical or laboratory evidence of sepsis or neurogenic disease. Case 2: A 55 year-old female presented with hip pain of 7 months duration. Radiographic findings developed into

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... den destruction of the joint during an ordinary course of secondary osteoarthritis. Case 3: A 55 year-old female who had been treated with oral medications for nearly thirty years for schizophrenia, was injured in a fall. She complained of right coxalgia, but fracture of the femoral neck was not diagnosed by anteroposterior X-ray in the local orthopedic clinic. The pain didn't improve and she visited our hospital 2 months after the injury. Radiographs showed abnormal bone absorption of the femoral neck. The pathomechanism of rapidly destructive coxarthrosis (RDC) has not been clarified. However our cases support the features of RDC previously described in the literature. We should regard RDC as a special type of a syndrome causing hip joint destruction rather than one disease.