Shorter duration of symptoms linked with better subjective results after hip arthroscopy

CHICAGO — Compared with competitive athletes who experience symptoms for longer than 1 year, athletes who experience symptoms for less than 1 year demonstrate superior patient-reported outcomes after hip arthroscopy, results showed.

“More recently, research has been done to try to predict outcomes in athletes undergoing hip arthroscopy, and the influence of duration of symptoms has not been fully established,” Andrew Jimenez, MD, said in his presentation at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting.

Jimenez and colleagues at the American Hip Institute analyzed a study group of 50 professional, collegiate, high-school and organized amateur athletes who underwent 51 primary hip arthroscopies within 1 year of symptom onset and a propensity-matched control group of competitive athletes who underwent hip arthroscopy after 1 year of symptom onset.

Return to play (RTP) rates and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) were collected at a minimum 2-year follow-up. According to the abstract, outcomes included the non-arthritic hip score (NAHS), hip outcome score-sport specific subscale (HOS-SSS), International Hip Outcome Tool (iHOT-12) and VAS pain scale.

Overall, the study group demonstrated significant improvement from preoperative to latest follow-up for all recorded PROs, Jimenez said. Compared with the control group, the study group demonstrated “superior” scores in all 2-year PROs, researchers found. At 2 years, the study group had a NAHS of 93.8, a HOS-SSS of 89.1, an iHOT-12 of 87.7 and a VAS of 1.5. In comparison, the control group had a NAHS of 85.1, a HOS-SSS of 77.2, an iHOT-12 of 76.4 and a VAS of 2.4. The RTP rate for the study group was 72.9%, a rate similar to the control group, according to Jimenez.

“In conclusion, competitive athletes undergoing primary hip arthroscopy with symptoms for less than or equal to 1 year had superior PROs compared to a propensity-matched group with symptoms for over 1 year,” Jimenez said. “However, their rates for achieving the [minimal clinically important difference] and return to sport were similar between the two groups,” he added.