Hip Arthroscopy: The Next Frontier in Orthopaedic Surgery and Its Challenges

Hip Arthroscopy is the most rapidly growing field in Orthopaedic Surgery. The volume of hip arthroscopy has tripled since 2003. Yet, despite the rapid recent growth, it is felt that only 10% of problems that can be treated with hip arthroscopy are currently being done so. The reasons for this are multiple — lack of recognition of problems in the hip by those not experienced with non-arthritic hip problems, insufficient numbers of surgeons trained to do hip arthroscopy, and, not unimportantly, the difficulty of performing hip arthroscopy. One of the most common underlying problems affecting individuals with non-arthritic hip pain is femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). FAI was first described by Ganz in the Swiss literature in 1995, and did not make it into the English literature until 1999. Due to its very recent identification, acceptance of this problem and dissemination to clinicians has resulted in a relatively low number of clinicians being aware of this problem.