Introduction: Avascular necrosis of the lunate bone was described in 1910 by the Austrian radiologist Robert Kienbock, which is named after him. A mixture of different factors such as mechanical, vascular and genetic predisposition may be related to the pathogenesis of this disease. As for the natural evolution of the disease, failure in early diagnosis and early treatment may lead to a gradual evolution from stage I to stage IV, causing discomfort to the patient. Objective: to detail the current information related to avascular necrosis of the lunate, description, etiology, classification, imaging presentation and management of Kienbocks disease. Methodology: a total of 32 articles were analyzed in this review, including review and original articles, as well as clinical cases, 20 bibliographies were used because the other articles were not relevant for this study. The sources of information were PubMed, Google Scholar and Cochrane; the terms used to search for information in Spanish, Portuguese and English were: Kienbock, avascular necrosis of the lunate and lunatomalacia.