Editorial Commentary: "The Earth is Not Flat": Progressing From Plain Radiographs to Three-Dimensional Imaging When Evaluating Hip Disorders.

Abstract

Dysplastic hip morphologies have received increasing attention in the hip preservation community. Defining and characterizing "transitional acetabular coverage" or "borderline" dysplasia has been extraordinarily challenging, and these hips have been lumped together based on focal radiographic measurements such as the lateral center edge and Tonnis angles. Some of these hips are treated with arthroscopy and some with corrective osteotomies without definitive patient-related outcome measure winners in our literature. Three-dimensional imaging evaluation of these hips with regard to acetabular and femoral-sided anatomy will be required to more clearly define any consistent anatomic variants and their respective optimal surgical approaches.