Trends in Adolescent Hip Arthroscopy From the PHIS Database 2008-2018

Previous studies have suggested that hip arthroscopy has been performed with increasing frequency. Few studies have examined this trend in the adolescent population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the trend in the frequency of hip arthroscopy in adolescents standardized by total orthopaedic surgeries in adolescents at pediatric hospitals in the United States.

The Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) database was queried for patients aged 10 to 19 years who underwent orthopaedic surgery at any of the PHIS-participating hospitals from 2008 to 2018. The subgroup of patients in this age cohort who underwent hip arthroscopy was identified using Current Procedural Terminology procedure codes. The yearly rate was expressed as the number of hip arthroscopies per 1000 orthopaedic surgeries. A linear model was used to fit the data and illustrate the relative trend.

A total of 432,309 orthopaedic surgeries including 9491 hip arthroscopies were performed for patients 10 to 19 years of age. Hip arthroscopies were performed at a yearly rate of 22 per 1000 orthopaedic surgeries. Over the 10-year period, the number of hip arthroscopies increased 6.2-fold, whereas the number of orthopaedic procedures increased 1.6-fold. There was a 3.9-fold increase in hip arthroscopies relative to total orthopaedic surgeries.

The number of hip arthroscopic procedures in adolescent patients has increased by 3.9-fold times relative to total orthopaedic surgeries in adolescents over a 10-year span, on the basis of data from PHIS-participating institutions. This finding mirrors the trends in the adult population over similar time periods. This may be because of increasing participation in sports in the adolescent population, and a better understanding of the diagnosis and treatment of femoroacetabular impingement and other sports-related hip pathologies.

Level IV.