Surgical dislocation of the hip in the treatment of acetabular fractures allows the femoral head to be safely displaced from the acetabulum. This permits full intra-articular acetabular and femoral inspection for the evaluation and potential treatment of cartilage lesions of the labrum and femoral head, reduction of the fracture under direct vision and avoidance of intra-articular penetration with hardware. We report 60 patients with selected types of acetabular fracture who were treated using this approach. Six were lost to follow-up and the remaining 54 were available for clinical and radiological review at a mean follow-up of 4.4 years (2 to 9). Substantial damage to the intra-articular cartilage was found in the anteromedial portion of the femoral head and the posterosuperior aspect of the acetabulum. Labral lesions were predominantly seen in the posterior acetabular area. Anatomical reduction was achieved in 50 hips (93%) which was considerably higher than that seen in previous reports. There were no cases of avascular necrosis. Four patients subsequently required total hip replacement. Good or excellent results were achieved in 44 hips (81.5%). The cumulative eight-year survivorship was 89.0% (95% confidence interval 84.5 to 94.1). Significant predictors of poor outcome were involvement of the acetabular dome and lesions of the femoral cartilage greater than grade 2. The functional mid-term results were better than those of previous reports. Surgical dislocation of the hip allows accurate reduction and a predictable mid-term outcome in the management of these difficult injuries without the risk of the development of avascular necrosis

Introduction. Ectopic ossification (EO) at the acetabular rim has been suggested to be associated with pincer impingement and to lead to ossification of the labrum. However, this has never been substantiated with histological, radiographic and MRI findings in large cohorts of patients. We hypothesized that it is more a bone apposition of the acetabular rim and that it occurs more frequently in coxa profunda (CP) hips. Materials and Methods. In the first part, a cohort of 20 hips with this suspected ectopic rim ossification (EO) pattern were identified. The radiographic features that could be associated with this ossification pattern were described and evaluated by a histologic examination of intra-operative samples taken from the rim trimming. In the second part, we assessed the prevalence of this ectopic ossification process in a cohort of 203 patients treated for FAI. Results. Histologic examination revealed that new acetabular bone formation was either overgrowing the non-ossified labrum or moving it away from the native rim. Radiologically, this was associated with an “indentation sign” and/or a “double line sign”. There were no specimens that had shown any evidence of labral ossification. EO was found in 26 hips (18%) of the second cohort. Twenty of 26 hips (77%) with EO had CP morphology and 29% of CP hips had EO signs. In contrast, only 6 non-profunda hips (8%) were associated with EO. There was a high correlation between XR and MRI findings as >80% of XR findings were confirmed on MRI. Sixty-nine hips had CP morphology. The double line sign (N = 13), the indentation sign (N = 12) and a prominent lateral rim (N = 11) were found. Hips with an EO pattern were found in patients that were significantly older than those without EO (p = 0.01). The acetabular characteristics of the EO groups were not significantly different from the CP hips without EO. The femoral characteristics were significantly different between groups with lower neck shaft angles (128° vs 134°;p = 0,0002) and shorter femoral necks lengths (62mm vs 65mm; p = 0,04)) in the EO group. The mean Tonnis classification was not significantly different (p = 0,18). In addition, the mean acetabular cartilage degeneration status was not different between both groups (p = 0,9). Rim trimming down to the native acetabular bone was done in all cases either by arthroscopy (N = 40) or open surgical dislocation (N = 17). Discussion. Ectopic ossification of the acetabular rim predominantly occurs in CP and is associated with specific anatomic features of the proximal femur. This type of impingement seems to be different and less aggressive than other described impingement processes. The double line sign and indentation sign are highly indicative for this EO process and are indicative for a longstanding impingement problem. Trimming of the acetabular rim should be conducted

Objectives

Accurate characterisation of fractures is essential in fracture management trials. However, this is often hampered by poor inter-observer agreement. This article describes the practicalities of defining the fracture population, based on the Neer classification, within a pragmatic multicentre randomised controlled trial in which surgical treatment was compared with non-surgical treatment in adults with displaced fractures of the proximal humerus involving the surgical neck.