Why are we still Operating on Hips solely based on MRI? Hip Labrum Surgery Mania Revisited…
Before you allow someone to decide on surgery based on an MRI finding…you might want to get a good exam and try a hip labrum surgery alternative first. A study just presented at the AOSSM conference demonstrates what we’ve been saying for years-operating or obsessing on MRI findings is a bad idea. Many patients these days often see a surgeon who spends more time looking at the MRI than performing an examination. This most recent study found that a whopping 73% of patients without hip pain (n=45) had abnormal hip MRI findings. Patients over the age of 35 were more likely to have abnormalities, showing a 13.7 times greater likelihood of having cartilage defects and 16.7 times greater chance of having a bone cyst! I’ve blogged before that we’ve seen many patients with hip pain who were told that they needed a hip replacement who later turned out to have no hip problems (their “hip pain” went away when we treated the patients low back). I’ve also blogged on what we call “hip labrum mania”, this is when patients are told they have a labral tear on MRI and sign up for a big surgery to reshape the hip socket. The upshot? If the surgeon spends more of his time with hands on the MRI than hands on the patient in the examination, find a new surgeon.
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