Hip arthroscopy treatment in patients with osteoarthritis is controversial.
To systematically review the clinical outcome of patients with hip osteoarthritis (OA) treated with arthroscopy and what proportion of these patients subsequently underwent total hip arthroplasty (THA).
Systematic review.
PubMed, Cochrane library and LILACS were searched from January 1990 through December 2013 for eligible studies. The methodological quality of the collected data (applied to each study) was performed with a modified version of the Coleman methodology score (mCMS).
11 studies were included in this review. Most of the studies included reported clinical improvements. The overall conversion rate to THA ranged from 9.5% to 50%. Mean time between arthroscopy and THA was 13.5 months.
The quality of studies is low. We have found inconclusive evidence to make categorical indications for hip arthroscopy in the treatment of OA, although we have found that there is some postoperative clinical outcome improvement of pain and function in a short-term evaluation. Increasingly worse outcomes were seen as the severity of OA increased.