Labral Healing: MRI after 12 month of repair

OBJECTIVES: The purpouse of this study was to evaluate MRI images of labral repair after one year, trying to stablish MRI images as a reliable tool for the diagnosis of labral healing. METHODS: One hundred and sixty-two patients presenting with femoroacetabular impingement that underwent an arthroscopic surgery were treated between 2012 and 2015. Of these, 124 met the selection criteria and were included in this study. Only patients with 12 months of follow up and labral repair were included. Patients with previous hip surgery were excluded. Coronal, sagittal and axial MRI cuts were evaluated by three independent observers, an arthroscopic hip surgery, a fellow in hip arthroscopic surgery and a musculoeskeletal radiologist. RESULTS: on regard of our statistics 68% of the patients had labral healing images, 16% had no healing signals and 16% unsatisfactory images. Just in the 47% the observers had a 100% of agreement. Interobserver variation was: intraobserver agreement was 94% ( arthroscopic surgeon), 72 % (radiologist), 67 % (fellow). CONCLUSION: The main finding of this study was that a high inter and intraobserver variability was found when analysing the healing status of hip repaired labrums. Assessment of labrum healing after an arthroscopic repair should not only rely on imaging methods and therefore should be concurrently performed with a comprehensive physical examination.