Return to Dance and Functional Recovery After Hip Arthroscopy With Labral Repair in Competitive Dancers at Minimum 2-Year Follow-up
Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2026
Hip arthroscopy helps dancers with FAI feel and function better and most get back to dance, but of those who returned, under half were still dancing years later, often for reasons that had nothing to do with the hip.
Studien
Retrospective case series, n=37 competitive dancers (36 female, 1 male) undergoing primary hip arthroscopy with labral repair for FAI, followed a mean 7.4 years (range 3.2-12.2).
Vad de fann
All patient-reported outcome scores improved significantly from pre- to post-op (P≤.037). 71% (20/37) returned to dance, 85% of those at the same or higher level, but only 45% of dancers who initially returned were still dancing at final follow-up; mean satisfaction was 7.1/10 and 10% needed revision surgery.
Studiedesign
Retrospective, single-arm case series of competitive dancers who underwent hip arthroscopy with labral repair at one centre, with patient-reported outcomes collected pre-op and at a minimum 2-year follow-up (37 of an unspecified larger eligible cohort actually completed follow-up). This sits at the bottom of the therapeutic evidence hierarchy, Level IV, with no comparator and no control for the natural history of a dance career.
Metodik
Because every patient received the same operation and there is no non-operative or historical comparison arm, the pre-to-post PROM improvement cannot separate a true treatment effect from regression to the mean, natural recovery, or simple time passing, this is the core threat behind the appraisal's skepticism of the P≤.037 result. Retrospective design and reliance on patients completing follow-up surveys raise real attrition and non-response bias, since dancers who quit dancing, moved away, or were dissatisfied may be under-represented, which would inflate the 71% return-to-dance and 7.1/10 satisfaction figures. Return-to-dance status and satisfaction are self-reported with no blinded or independent verification, adding detection bias, and the paper reports no power calculation, so a clinician should treat the 45% still-dancing figure and the 10% revision rate as descriptive rates from a selected sample rather than precise, generalisable estimates.
Granskningen
Statistically significant PROM improvement is unsurprising in an uncontrolled surgical cohort and doesn't establish that arthroscopy caused the recovery or beat non-operative care. The more clinically informative numbers are the soft ones: only 45% of dancers who returned were still dancing years later, and satisfaction averaged 7.1/10, which is respectable but not the slam-dunk the return-to-sport headline implies.
Begränsningen
Without a denominator of all dancers who had surgery in this window (not just those who completed follow-up) and without a conservatively-managed comparison group, you can't tell how much of this outcome is attributable to the operation itself versus selection, time, or the dance career naturally winding down.
Referensstudie
This sits within the broader FAI arthroscopy return-to-sport literature (systematic reviews in athletic populations generally report 85-90%+ return-to-sport rates), against which this dancer-specific cohort's 71% return and high non-hip-related attrition stands out as comparatively modest, adding useful population-specific nuance rather than overturning prior evidence.
Vad du gör på måndag
Use this to set realistic expectations when counselling competitive dancers pre-op: most will return to dance at their prior level, but plan for a meaningful chance they stop dancing within a few years for reasons unrelated to the hip, so recovery counselling should address career and lifestyle factors, not just the joint.
In practice
This is counseling ammunition, not a treatment-protocol change: use it pre-op with competitive dancers to set a two-stage expectation, most will get back on stage (71%, 85% at prior level), but returning isn't the same as staying, since under half of returners are still dancing years later and the drop-off is usually life, not hip. In the physio clinic, that means building explicit check-ins at 6, 12 and 24 months post-clearance rather than treating RTS as the finish line, and screening for career/motivation factors alongside hip function at each one. On the S&C floor, coaches taking these dancers back into full training should load rotational ROM, deep flexion and single-leg control progressively against tolerance and symptoms rather than a fixed timeline, and flag early if training engagement is dropping for reasons that have nothing to do with hip capacity, since that pattern is common and worth naming rather than assuming it's a re-injury. Caveat: this is single-arm data from one specialist center with an unclear denominator, so use it to frame conversations, not to claim arthroscopy beats conservative care or to promise these numbers to an individual patient.
De fem studier som spelar roll — varje vecka, gratis.
Vi läser hela litteraturen inom idrottsmedicin, rehabilitering och prestation och granskar de studier som är värda din tid.
Få det gratis veckobrevetLäs på ditt språk: English · Français · Deutsch · Español · Italiano · Nederlands · Dansk · Svenska