Hip arthroscopy and osteoarthritis: Where are the limits and indications?

The use of hip arthroscopy, as a surgical technique, has increased significantly over the past ten years. The procedure has shown good and excellent results in symptom relief and function improvement for patients with femoro-acetabular impingement (FAI) and concurrent chondro-labral lesions. It is also a reliable method to correct the characteristic pathomorphologic alteration of FAI. However, surgical results are less successful among patients with advanced articular damage and secondary hip osteoarthritis. The aim of this article is to present some clinical and imagenological tools to discriminate the good candidates for arthroscopic FAI treatment from those who are not, due to extensive articular damage.