Elite ice hockey athletes have a high return to sport rate after hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS), but it is not always at the same level of performance, according to a new study.
The study, “Return to Sport for Professional and Subelite Ice Hockey Players After Arthroscopic Surgery for Femoroacetabular Impingement Syndrome,” was published online on May 9, 2022, in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.
“Femoroacetabular impingement syndrome is a common cause of hip pain, which can prevent ice hockey players from sports participation. Hip arthroscopy is often performed to relieve pain and enable the player to return to sport and return to performance,” the researchers wrote.
In their study, the researchers wanted to determine return to sport and return to performance rates at the professional and sub-elite levels after hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement syndrome.
They collected patient data from between 2011 and 2019 using a local hip arthroscopy registry. Information on the players’ careers was found on ice hockey-specific web pages.
Return to sport was defined as returning to ice hockey after the surgery, while return to performance was defined as returning to the same league at a comparable level to before symptoms.
Overall, there were 80 ice hockey players included in the study. When the researchers compared pre-symptom performance to the first season after surgery, the return to sport rate was 72%, with 94% of the players returning to the same or higher level of play.
When they compared the pre-symptom season with the first season after surgery, the return to sport rate was 78%. By the second seasons after surgery, 64% of the players still played ice hockey. The return rate was significantly higher among professional players compared with sub-elite players (96% vs. 69%; p = .014).
Breaking down by position, 85% of goalkeepers, 74% of forwards and 60% of defensemen returned to sport. Only 28% of the players played at least the same number of games during the first season after surgery as they did during the pre-symptom seasons, the researchers reported.
“Professional ice hockey players returned more frequently than players on the sub-elite level,” they wrote.
Study authors include Ida Lindman, M.D., Ph.D., Martin Lofskog, Axel Oblin, M.D., Ph.D., and Josefin Abrahamsson, PT, PhD., Eric Hamrin Senorski, PT, Ph.D., Jon Karlsson, M.D., Ph.D., and Mikael Sansone, M.D., Ph.D., all of University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Olufemi R. Ayeni, M.D., Ph.D. of McMaster University in Sweden also contributed to the study.
