[ click to enlarge ]	[ click to enlarge ]
Woman in her late 20s with right hip dysplasia and previous treatment for a dislocated hip in infancy underwent successful peri-acetabular osteotomy (PAO) to realign the socket of her hip and was able to return to competitive tennis.

Hip dysplasia describes the condition when the hip socket does not develop properly and is more shallow and upward sloping than normal. The severe forms are detected at birth or infancy (congenital dislocation of the hip) but milder forms may not become apparent until adolescence or early adult life. The condition is much more common in females and causes sharp groin pain, catching, instability and early fatigue in the hip.

Detailed planning CT scans allow the precise orientation of the socket to be calculated to ensure an optimal correction at surgery.

Without treatment, arthritis develops because the increased stresses on the lining cartilage of the hip cause it to wear out quickly. Early diagnosis is therefore important to improve the mechanics of the hip and relieve symptoms. The most appropriate treatment is an operation to rotate the hip socket round so it becomes more horizontal (peri-acetabular osteotomy) although surgery may also be necessary on the femur (femoral osteotomy). Whilst these are big operations requiring 2 to 3 months on crutches, they can restore these young people's function without resort to implants and postpone the development of arthritis by decades.

Two US Surgeons with excellent sites: