Study: Arthroscopic Hip Surgery Benefits Adolescents with Hip Impingement

San Diego, CA—March 16, 2017

This study looks at arthroscopic surgery to treat hip impingement, known as femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), in the adolescent population. Impingement occurs when the hip joint is not functioning properly due to an anatomical abnormality. It is increasingly recognized as a significant cause of hip pain and disability. Impingement has also been linked to the development of early arthritis.

While arthroscopic treatment has been demonstrated to provide a high level of clinical success in adults, there has been little evidence on how children and adolescents fared after the procedure. Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery looked at arthroscopic treatment outcomes in the pediatric population, average age 16.5 years. "Our study used modern statistical methods to determine if adolescents’ showed meaningful outcome improvement after arthroscopic FAI surgery," explained Anil Ranawat, MD, sports medicine surgeon at HSS and senior investigator. "We found that the majority of adolescents undergoing arthroscopic hip surgery rated their hip function as ‘much improved.’ Additionally, analysis of self-reported outcome scores demonstrated that the majority of adolescents surveyed had reached a clinically substantial level of functional improvement."

Paper #637: Does Hip Arthroscopy Provide Meaningful Outcome Improvement for Adolescent Femoroacetabular Impingement? Benedict Nwachukwu MD, Brenda Chang MPH, Cynthia Kahlenberg MD, Kara Fields MS,
Danyal Nawabi MD, Bryan Kelly MD, Anil Ranawat, MD.