The young adult hip: extra-articular causes of hip pain and how to pick the winners

Hip pain in young adults is not always caused by intra-articular pathology, even in the presence of abnormal examination and imaging findings. Therefore, management of young adult hip pain requires processes that identify patients who are likely to benefit from surgical intervention. An important investigation in the diagnostic pathway is the intra-articular injection; a negative response to this should alert the surgeon to the presence of symptomatic extra-articular causes of hip pain. Our aim was to identify the proportion of patients referred with intra-articular pathology whose primary cause of pain was of extra-articular origin. A total of 143 intra-articular hip injections (local anaesthetic + corticosteroid) were performed over a 2-year period. Mean patient age was 41.95 (95% confidence interval: 39.50–44.41) years with a mean body mass index of 27 (95% confidence interval: 25.77–28.23); 26% of patients (n = 37) had no relief of symptoms after intra-articular injection. Of the patients with no relief, 81.1% (n = 30) were found to have extra-articular pathology as the cause of their pain and the remainder are under on-going investigation. Intra-articular hip injection is an important investigation in the diagnostic pathway of young adult hip pain, as it can highlight and differentiate those patients with referred pain from extra-articular pathology. This benefit may be further enhanced if injections are performed in theatres using image intensifier, under sedation, as it allows direct penetration into the joint without any local anaesthetic infiltration of surrounding tissue. The latter allows immediate objective assessment of symptom relief, eliminating the need to rely on retrospective patient recall of symptom change.