[Approach to painful hip resurfacing].

Hip resurfacing in young patients has been increasingly performed within the last decade. In comparison to standard total hip arthroplasty the failure rate remains high. Age and implant size have a significant effect on the risk of revision for primary total resurfacing and the risk of revision increases with increasing age. At 7 years the cumulative revision rate for patients is 5% and females have more than twice the cumulative revision rate as males. Even in hip resurfacing arthroplasty which has been performed in a perfect manner, a certain percentage of patients suffer from persistent pain for various reasons, such as neck fracture, iliopsoas tendinopathy, metal hypersensitivity, such as aseptic lymphocytic vasculitis associated lesions (ALVAL) and aseptic loosening. Diagnostic work-up of the painful hip resurfacing is challenging even for experienced surgeons. Recommendations for the diagnostic procedure are described.