Shaky Connection between Radiographic Evidence and Pain

Pain in the hip means a patient has osteoarthritis. Right? Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine say “Not so fast.” According to Caitlyn Fitzpatrick, writing for MD Magazine, in the Farmington Study of 946 patients ages 49 to 79 only 15.6% of patients with frequent hip pain had radiographic signs of osteoarthritis. And only 20.7% of patients with radiographic signs of osteoarthritis had frequent hip pain.

“Given these findings, patients with suspected hip osteoarthritis should be treated regardless of X-ray confirmation, ” said Chan Kim, M.D., corresponding author of the study. He added, “The majority of older subjects with high suspicion for clinical hip osteoarthritis did not have radiographic hip osteoarthritis, suggesting that many older persons with hip osteoarthritis might be missed if diagnosticians relied on hip radiographs to determine if hip pain was due to osteoarthritis.”

The study revealed that hip pain and osteoarthritis do not match up in many cases. Kim noted that failing to catch an osteoarthritis case has harmful consequences. The condition has already been linked to sleep disturbances and heart problems when it requires total joint replacement surgery. And the clinical implication, according to Fitzpatrick, is that test results should not determine whether or not to move forward with a possible hip osteoarthritis diagnosis.