»» Thank you very much for having me today. I'd like to thank my co-authors and mentors for all their help with this project. Listed here are our relevant disclosures. So hip arthroscopy has become a widely used technique to treat various pathologies of the hip. However, to date the impact of the routine use of postoperative hip bracing on patient-reported outcome measures and the re-operation rate has not been elucidated. Therefore the purpose of this study is to determine if there's a difference in patient-reported outcome measures or the re-operation rate for those who are braced versus those who are not braced following routine hip arthroscopy for FAI. This was a retrospective review of 193 patients who underwent hip arthroscopy from 2018 to 2021 by two orthopedic surgeons at a single institution. Patients prior to July 1st, 2019 were immobilized in hip brace, those after July 1st, 2019 were not. Baseline patient-reported outcomes in the form of Visual Analog Pain Scale, Modified Harris Hip Score, Single Assessment Numeric Evaluation, VR-12 Physical and VR-12 Mental Scores were obtained for all patients in both cohorts preoperatively and postoperatively at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year and 2 years. Groups were then compared to evaluate for a difference in PROMs and re-operation rates over time. Only individuals with 2 years of follow-up data were analyzed for re-operation. Additionally these results were stratified by gender to assess any gender-based differences in these outcomes. Here you can see our flow diagram illustrating the inclusion and exclusion of patients. We began with 375 eligible patients who underwent arthroscopy during our study period. 183 of these were excluded due to having underwent various other procedures such as gluteus repairs, core muscle repairs or IT band lengthening on the day of their primary arthroscopy procedure. They also may have been excluded due to failure to complete postoperative PROM data. We included 101 braced and 92 non-braced patients in our PROM analysis and 101 braced and 43 non-braced patients in our analysis of re-operation. Patient demographics and preoperative radiographic parameters were collected. The braced and non-braced cohorts were statistically similar regarding gender, age and BMI. They had a statistically similar average alpha angle. But the average LCEA was statistically different with the non-braced cohort having a slightly higher average LCEA. So that's for the results of our PROM analysis. In the combined gender analysis there was no significant difference in VAS at any follow-up between non-braced and braced groups. In the individual gender analysis however, non-braced males reported slightly higher VAS pain scores at 6 months postoperatively. In both combined and separated gender analyses there were no significant differences in modified hair CIP score at any follow-up between non-braced and braced cohorts. In both combined and separated gender analyses there was no significant difference in SANE scores at any follow-up between non-braced and braced groups. In both the combined and separated gender analyses there was no significant difference in VR12 physical scores at any follow-up between non-braced and braced groups. Finally for VR12 in the combined gender analysis there was no significant difference in any follow-up between the non-braced and braced groups. In the individual gender analysis non-braced males reported slightly lower VR12 mental scores at 6 months postoperatively. In our analysis of reoperation, 8 of 101 patients underwent a reoperation in the braced cohort while 1 of 43 patients underwent a reoperation in the non-braced cohort. This resulted in no significant difference being detected in the reoperation rates for all braced versus non-braced patients included in this analysis. In conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that the use of orthosis following routine hip arthroscopy for FAI does not significantly alter patient-reported outcome measures or significantly impact the reoperation rate. Postoperative bracing increases perioperative cost and by foregoing routine bracing patients may avoid associated morbidity and come with wearing a brace for a prolonged period of time. Thank you all very much for your time today.

postoperative hip bracing

hip arthroscopy

FAI

patient-reported outcome measures

re-operation rates