Renowned Pediatric and Young Adult Orthopeadic surgeon from Chicago Dr Gourineni Prasad has said that if hip preservation surgery was performed in young patients, it would delay or arrest arthritis and also helps in avoiding or delaying total hip joint replacement surgery in further.

Talking to newsmen in Hyderabad on April 14, Dr Prasad who is here to participate in 12th Continue Medical Education (CME) 2019 “Advanced Hip Preservation Course” organized Sai Institute of Sports Injury & Arthroscopy (SISA) said that not many, especially the young adults and children, are aware that pain in thigh or knee may sometimes indicate hip problems and any delay in diagnosing and treating the problem will lead to irreversible damage and arthritis of the hip joint.

Explaining further, Dr Prasad said that the hip joint is a major ball and socket designed to give the ability to sit, squat, stand, run, and jump without popping out or wearing down during our life time. However, hip pain is becoming common even in young people. The pain is usually not severe in early stages and the diagnosis is not made readily without advanced training to doctors.

Most hip arthritis is secondary to shape alterations of the bones. Several of these alterations start at a young age while a few conditions start in adulthood.” We now have the knowledge and information to identify these alterations early, treat them, and prevent arthritis. The goal of this meeting was to disseminate this knowledge to more Orthopaedic surgeons so that more people can be helped”, he said.

Dr K Raghuveer Reddy, Sr. Shoulder & Knee Surgeon, SISA, Hyderabad said, there are several childhood diseases leading hip damage such as congenital dislocation where the child is born with a dislocated hip, infection of the joint (septic arthritis), problem with circulation of the ball (Perthes disease), ball slipping on the thigh bone (Slipped epiphysis) etc., the incidence of these is in the range of 1 in a lakh and normally seen when the child is between 10 to 14 years of age.

There are newer problems especially in young adults like jamming of the hip bones known as femoroacetabular impingement, commonly seen in 25 to 30 years age group, with incidence being in the range of 1 per cent of the population in that age group, leading to shape alterations. Appropriate early treatment can decrease the chance of these alterations.