Arthroscopic repair of delaminated acetabular articular cartilage in femoroacetabular impingement.

Lesions to articular cartilage can be difficult to treat and directly impact surgical outcome in hip arthroscopy. This article describes a direct cartilage suture repair technique for a young, active individual with full-thickness acetabular cartilage delamination. Lesions of this type are commonly seen with femoroacetabular impingement. A 17-year-old boy presented with bilateral hip pain greater in the right than left. Arthroscopic intervention for the right hip included direct cartilage repair for the cartilage lesion, osteoplasty for femoroacetabular impingement, repair for an anterior labral tear, capsular plication for iliofemoral ligament laxity, and psoas lengthening. Twelve weeks postoperatively, a standard capsular plication, osteoplasty, and chondroplasty were performed on the left hip. At follow-up, the patient reported feeling 95% normal. He noted that the right and left hips were essentially the same. Symptoms consisted of stiffness after prolonged sitting and mild pain following sports. The patient reported being pain free 90% of the time, with pain 2/10 at worst. He scored a 96 on the modified Harris Hip Score, 93 on the Hip Outcome Score Activities of Daily Living subscale, and 81 on the Hip Outcome Score Sports subscale. Overall, the patient was satisfied with the outcome. The direct cartilage repair, in addition to osteoplasty, anterior superior labral repair, iliofemoral capsular plication, and psoas lengthening, produced an excellent outcome in this young, active patient.