Good As New?

What are the chances of returning to the same level of competition in your sport after arthroscopic hip surgery?

Pretty good, it seems.

Seventy-eight percent of surgery patients get back in the game after a about nine months, on average, and 91 percent of them are able to compete at the pre-injury level (or maybe better), according to a study led by Dr. Bryan T. Kelly, an orthopedic surgeon and a co-director of the Center for Hip Pain and Preservation at Hospital for Special Surgery.

The study tracked 47  high-level athletes involved in several sports: ice hockey, soccer, baseball, swimming, lacrosse, field hockey, football, running, tennis, horseback riding and crew. These athletes ranged in age from 17 to 56, with 23 the average; all competed at the varsity level in college or high school or were professionals. The average follow-up was around 16 months after surgery.

Dr. Kelly disclosed these findings last year at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine. Coincidentally, the presentation occurred on July 15 – the date for my arthroscopic hip surgery this year!

Like me, the athletes in the study suffered from femoroacetabular impingement (F.A.I.), or hip impingement syndrome. In other words: too much friction  in the hip joint. In this condition, the ball, or femoral head, and the socket, or acetabulum, rub against each other, creating problems in the hip joint.  In most cases, the surrounding cartilage, including the labrum, are damaged, and that can lead to hip arthritis.

Here’s a diagram of the hip anatomy, from the Hospital for Special Surgery Web site:

Using hip arthroscopy surgery to treat F.A.I. can be “technically challenging,” according to Dr. Kelly, but it has many advantages over traditional open surgery. “Less soft tissue trauma, less blood loss, shorter hospitalizations,” he told the Orthopaedic Society last summer.

The procedure is done by creating two to three small incisions (about a quarter to a half-inch long) into the hip area. These serve as “portals” for inserting into the joint an arthroscope (or long, thin camera that lets the surgeon see what’s inside) and surgical tools known as “shavers” that repair the torn labrum or shave away the bumps in the bone that caused the labral damage in the first place.

Here’s a diagram of what hip arthroscopy surgery looks like, from the Hospital for Special Surgery Web site:

HSS

While I’m neither a professional nor collegiate athlete looking to win trophies or set new records – heck, I’m not even a high-level amateur – I still enjoy some friendly competition on the race course. So, if these top-notch athletes had some success from arthroscopic hip surgery, then maybe I will, too.

If you’d like to read more about this study, please go to this site.