Performed by – Azal Jalgaonkar, Reza Mansouri, Seb Sturridge

This is keyhole surgery that enables us to look inside and treat a painful hip joint to improve pain and preserve the joint. Common symptoms that suggest there may be a problem inside the hip include pain in the groin, thigh or buttock; and mechanical symptoms such as clicking, catching and stiffness in the joint. Pain is commonly due to a torn cartilage, or ‘labrum’ that can be debrided or repaired.

What to expect
The procedure will be as a day case. You will require a general anaesthetic to relax your muscles so hip can be distracted with traction, to enable us to see inside it and introduce instruments to smooth off rough surfaces and remove loose pieces of cartilage that may be causing a problem. We use between two and four small (5mm) keyholes on the outside of the thigh.

On the day of surgery
Before surgery your consultant and anaesthetist will meet you in your room. The operation usually takes around 90 minutes to complete, but you may spend 30 minutes or more recovering in theatre before you return to the ward.

After a hip arthroscopy
You will wake up in recovery lying on your back. The hip area to be a little sore but there should be no severe pain. You will need to use crutches for a day or two and shouldn’t drive for ten days or so. There will be exercises to do with the physiotherapist but any impact exercises are not advised for a month. Because we need to pull hard on the leg to distract the hip during the operation, there may rarely be some numbness in the groin or thigh that should resolve within a few days or weeks.

Outcome
Most patients will benefit from hip arthroscopy, but there may be some conditions after which the improvement is only short-term and further surgery may be required. ‘We may ask your permission to enter information about your hip operation onto a national register managed by the British Hip Society. This is to help assess the outcome of your surgery and compare it with many other patients in the UK. It is completely confidential.

You will receive an email from the registry at 6 and 12 months post-op with a simple questionnaire to return.