The rate of hip dislocations from playing sports is infinitesimally small—an estimated 2,941 out of a total 60 million students who play sports in the U.S. (for those keeping score at home, that is 0.005%)—but when hip dislocations do occur, they are 10x more likely to occur in contact sports, especially football, snowboarding, skiing, and basketball, when compared to noncontact sports, according to a new study.
The study, “Epidemiology of Sports-Related Traumatic Hip Dislocations Reported In United States Emergency Departments, 2010-2019,” was published in the May 2022 issue of Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.
“Traumatic hip dislocations are rare injuries that most commonly occur in motor vehicle accidents. There is a paucity of literature that describes sports-related hip dislocations,” the researchers wrote.
In the study, they wanted to know the incidence of sports-related hip dislocations and any related sport- or sex-related epidemiological trends.
They used the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database to collect sports-related hip dislocations data from 2010 to 2019, which included information from emergency department visits from 100 hospitals across the United States.
Overall, the researchers identified 102 hip dislocations injuries over a span of 10 years, with an estimate of 2,941 injuries nationwide. Ten of the 102 sports-related hip dislocations had concomitant acetabular fractures. The researchers calculated that this would mean that 288 injuries would occur nationally over 10 years.
According to the data, male athletes experienced more sports-related hip dislocations than female athletes. They had a relative incidence of 12.51 (p < .001). Adolescents aged 15 5o 19 years had the most hip dislocations.
The researchers also found that 17 sports caused at least 1 hip dislocation over the 10-year period. Contact sports had the most compared to noncontact sports (91.2% vs. 8.8%, p < .001). Football, snowboarding, skiing, and basketball had the highest rates of hip dislocation. There were an estimated 164 injuries per year in football, 28 per year in snowboarding, 26 per year in skiing and 21 per year in basketball.
In football, most hip dislocations occurred during tackling (82.7% vs. 17.3%, p < .001)) versus non-tackling mechanisms.
“The incidence of traumatic sports-related hip dislocations was extremely low in the United States during the study period. Male adolescents, aged 15 to 19 years, sustained the greatest number of injuries during football. Significantly more hip dislocations occurred in contact sports, most commonly football, snowboarding, skiing, and basketball compared with noncontact sports. As adolescent athletes may have limited treatment options if osteonecrosis occurs, these data serve to increase the clinical awareness of these injuries,” the researchers wrote.
Study authors include Jay Moran, B.S., Ryan Cheng, B.A., Christopher A. Schneble, M.D., Joseph B. Kahan, M.D., MPH and Elizabeth C. Gardner, M.D., all of Yale University School of Medicine. Joshua I. Mathew, B.S. and Don Li, M.D., Ph.D., of Hospital for Special Surgery-Weill Cornell Medical College also contributed to the study.
