Rotational, contact sport athletes may have higher prevalence of severe chondral defects
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Key takeaways:
- Severe chondral defects are common in rotational and contact sport athletes following hip arthroscopy.
- Football, soccer and baseball players had the highest prevalence of severe defects.
WASHINGTON — Results presented here showed that severe chondral defects are common in rotational and contact sport athletes following hip arthroscopy.
Aaron J. Casp, MD, and colleagues compared the prevalence, size, severity (grades 1 to 4) and location of chondral defects in 431 hips of college- or professional-level athletes in various sports who underwent primary hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement. Researchers classified patients based on at-risk hip motions, which included rotational, repetitive, extreme range of motion, contact and high-speed movements.
“The goal of this study was twofold,” Casp said in his presentation at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting. “One, to determine the prevalence of chondral defects among elite athletes undergoing hip arthroscopy and; two, to associate the type of biomechanical stress in that particular athlete’s sport with the corresponding articular cartilage injury patterns at the time of surgery.”
Researchers found chondral defects in 95% of patients’ hips. In addition, 51% of patients had severe chondral defects of grade 3 or 4, with football, soccer and baseball players most commonly experiencing severe defects.
Casp said that the classification group consisting of rotational sports had a higher prevalence of acetabular, femoral head and combined acetabular and femoral head grade 3 and 4 lesions than the nonrotational sport group. He also noted that the contact sport group had a higher prevalence of acetabular and combined grade 3 and 4 lesions than the noncontact sport group.
Meanwhile, patients who were not in high-speed sports had a higher prevalence of severe femoral head lesions than those in high-speed sports and patients who were not in extreme range of motion sports had a higher prevalence of severe lesions compared with those in extreme range of motion sports, according to Casp.
“This classification system was useful in that it can be used to identify athletes at-risk for chondral damage ... and inform the decisions and discussion of surgical timing and season management if this person has to undergo a cartilage procedure at the time of surgery,” Casp said.
He added, “Further study is needed to determine how these chondral injuries actually translate into career longevity.”
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Casp AJ, et al. Paper 11. Presented at: American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting; July 12-16, 2023; Washington, D.C.
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