Aims. Rotational acetabular osteotomy (RAO) has been reported to be effective in improving symptoms and preventing osteoarthritis (OA) progression in patients with mild to severe develomental dysplasia of the hip (DDH). However, some patients develop secondary OA even when the preoperative joint space is normal; determining who will progress to OA is difficult. We evaluated whether the preoperative cartilage condition may predict OA progression following surgery using T2 mapping MRI. Methods. We reviewed 61 hips with early-stage OA in 61 patients who underwent RAO for DDH. They underwent preoperative and five-year postoperative radiological analysis of the hip. Those with a joint space narrowing of more than 1 mm were considered to have 'OA progression'. Preoperative assessment of articular cartilage was also performed using 3T MRI with the T2 mapping technique. The region of interest was defined as the weightbearing portion of the acetabulum and femoral head. Results. There were 16 patients with postoperative OA progression. The T2 values of the centre to the anterolateral region of the acetabulum and femoral head in the OA progression cases were significantly higher than those in patients without OA progression. The preoperative T2 values in those regions were positively correlated with the narrowed joint space width. The receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that the T2 value of the central portion in the acetabulum provided excellent discrimination, with OA progression patients having an area under the curve of 0.858. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis showed T2 values of the centre to the
We have reviewed the current literature to compare
the results of surgery aimed to repair or debride a damaged acetabular
labrum. We identified 28 studies to be included in the review containing
a total of 1631 hips in 1609 patients. Of these studies 12 reported
a mean rate of good results of 82% (from 67% to 100%) for labral debridement.
Of the 16 studies that reported a combination of debridement and
re-attachment, five reported a comparative outcome for the two methods,
four reported better results with re-attachment and one study did
not find any significant difference in outcomes. Due to the heterogeneity
of the studies it was not possible to perform a meta-analysis or
draw accurate conclusions. Confounding factors in the studies include
selection bias, use of historical controls and high rates of loss
of follow-up. It seems logical to repair an unstable tear in a good quality
labrum with good potential to heal in order potentially to preserve
its physiological function. A degenerative labrum on the other hand
may be the source of discomfort and its preservation may result
in persistent pain and the added risk of failure of re-attachment.
The results of the present study do not support routine refixation
for all labral tears. Cite this article:
We have tested the reliability of a recently reported classification system of hip morphology in adolescents with cerebral palsy in whom the triradiate cartilage was closed. The classification is a six-grade ordinal scale, based on the measurement of the migration percentage and an assessment of Shenton’s arch, deformity of the femoral head, acetabular deformity and pelvic obliquity. Four paediatric orthopaedic surgeons and four physiotherapists received training in the use of the classification which they applied to the assessment of 42 hip radiographs, read on two separate occasions. The inter- and intra-observer reliability was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient and found to be excellent, with it ranging from 0.88 to 0.94. The classification in our study was shown to be valid (based on migration percentage), and reliable. As a result we believe that it can now be used in studies describing the natural history of hip displacement in cerebral palsy, in outcome studies and in communication between clinicians.
We review the treatment of pelvic Ewing’s sarcoma by the implantation of extracorporeally-irradiated (ECI) autografts and compare the outcome with that of other reported methods. We treated 13 patients with ECI autografts between 1994 and 2004. There were seven males and six females with a median age of 15.7 years (interquartile range (IQR) 12.2 to 21.7). At a median follow-up of five years (IQR 1.8 to 7.4), the disease-free survival was 69% overall, and 75% if one patient with local recurrence after initial treatment elsewhere was excluded. Four patients died from distant metastases at a mean of 17 months (13 to 23). There were three complications which required operative intervention; one was a deep infection which required removal of the graft. The functional results gave a mean Musculoskeletal Tumor Society score of 85% (60% to 97%), a mean Toronto extremity salvage score of 86% (69% to 100%) and a mean Harris hip score of 92 (67 to 100). We conclude that ECI grafting is a suitable form of treatment for localised and resectable pelvic Ewing’s sarcoma.
