Kappa Delta Elizabeth Winston Lanier Award Presented to The ANCHOR Group for Improving Quality of Care for Young Patients With Pre-Arthritic Hip Conditions

ROSEMONT, Ill., Feb. 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The 2024 Kappa Delta Elizabeth Winston Lanier Award was presented to the Academic Network of Conservative Hip Outcomes Research (ANCHOR) group for 20 years of research to improve the quality of care for adolescent and young adult patients suffering from the three most common pre-arthritic hip conditions: femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) and residual Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease (LCPD). Their research helped the orthopaedic community better understand the basic pathophysiology of hip osteoarthritis (OA), disease natural history, diagnosis, surgical treatment and predictors of treatment outcomes for young patients who often live with hip dysfunction for years or even decades with eventual progression to advanced OA.

This award recognizes research in musculoskeletal disease or injury with great potential to advance patient care. To read more about the award, please click here.

OA is a common condition that affects 27 million Americans with costs that are projected to increase by $185.5 billion per year.ⁱ Hip OA is particularly problematic due to the associated disability. Over time, the pre-arthritic conditions of FAI, DDH and LCPD wear down the articular cartilage that covers the hip joint surface and lead to hip OA, which is associated with pain, limited function and reduced quality of life.

“In the early 2000s, the orthopaedic community lacked an understanding of pre-arthritic hip disease diagnoses and treatments. Variable patient age at presentation, lack of generalizable surgical treatments and limited clinical outcomes reporting for hip preservation procedures were major challenges,” said lead researcher John C. Clohisy, MD, FAAOS, Daniel C. and Betty B. Viehmann Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis. “Due to a lack of knowledge of pre-arthritic hip disease and a limited number of surgeons to treat these diseases, the average wait time for an accurate pre-arthritic hip diagnosis was three to five years. This was clearly an underserved patient population.”

Early contributions by Reinhold Ganz, MD, and his colleagues in Switzerland helped transform hip surgery with the introduction of new surgical techniques and refined concepts regarding the causes of hip OA. However, these refined concepts and surgical strategies were initially viewed as untraditional, unproven and technically challenging.

“We wanted to understand, investigate and implement Dr. Ganz’s concepts to advance the quality of care for these patients, and we established three goals as the basis of our research: improving the individual health care experience of the patient; improving the health of populations; and lowering per capita health care costs for populations,” said Dr. Clohisy.

The ANCHOR group, coordinated from Washington University, initially enrolled two cohorts (FAI-1 and PAO-1) totaling 3,168 surgical cases to detail population characteristics of FAI and DDH patients, and to investigate the safety and efficacy of surgical treatments. Rigorous, comprehensive data collection of clinical presentation, diagnosis, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), radiographic imaging, surgical procedure details and intraoperative disease classification was the foundation for subsequent investigations. This robust dataset enabled the group to study several key performance indicators to provide quantitative measurement of improved patient outcomes.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND SUBSEQUENT FINDINGS

Timely Diagnosis: Define the patient population and educate orthopaedic surgeons

The ANCHOR group performed a series of foundational studies to describe the clinical presentation and epidemiology of patients with FAI, DDH and labral tears. Findings of the studies included:

There is a predominance of DDH in young active females, who often present with significant hip dysfunction and symptoms including groin or lateral hip pain. Clinical presentation is accelerated with high activity levels and more severe deformity.
Females with FAI have greater symptomatology and milder morphologic abnormalities while males have a higher activity level, larger morphologic abnormalities, and more extensive intra-articular disease. Both groups present with activity-related groin pain, and tend to have restricted hip range of motion and progressive symptoms over time.

Patient Satisfaction: Focus on responsiveness to patients’ needs

The ANCHOR group measured patient-reported satisfaction with standardized methodology to provide feedback on the patient experience associated with surgery for FAI. The findings included:

FAI patients self-reported high overall satisfaction rates (>91%) and low rates of dissatisfaction (>9%). Longer-term mean 10-year follow up of the FAI-1 cohort was recently completed (unpublished data) and demonstrated maintenance of these high satisfaction rates (91%).
Most patients studied who underwent PAO surgery demonstrated marked clinical improvement and returned to their sport, and only a small percentage had activity limitations from surgical hip symptoms (<11%). Overall patient satisfaction in PAO patients was also consistently over 90%.

Treatment Indication: Causes of hip preservation failure and innovations in surgical techniques

These studies aimed to identify appropriateness in patient selection and precise surgical technique. The findings included:

Hip arthroscopy procedures are best utilized in the treatment of FAI with accessible FAI morphology. Alternatively, outcomes of isolated hip arthroscopy in the setting of acetabular dysplasia or advanced articular disease are not favorable.

Complication Risk: Ensuring safety for high-quality care

The initial literature on surgical procedures in the young population was not standardized and lacked risk and complication reporting. The group analyzed the safety of PAO, hip arthroscopy and surgical hip dislocation. The findings included:

The complication risk is very acceptable and ranges from 1 to 5%, depending on the procedure.
Permanent disability related to any of these procedures is less than 1%.

Effectiveness: Using PROMs to compare preoperative and follow-up outcomes

Early skepticism among the orthopaedic community related to the diagnosis of FAI, its association with hip OA, indications for surgery and efficacy of surgery required critical investigation of these new concepts. The findings included:

Preoperative PROM score was a strong, highly significant predictor of all outcomes. More recent analyses have determined that competitive athletes have superior outcomes and lower failure rates compared to non-athletes (after controlling for important covariates). For FAI surgery, a lower risk of clinical failure was associated with participation in competitive athletics (p=0.01) and male gender (p<0.001).
Longer chronicity of preoperative symptoms, patients over 40 years old requiring acetabular microfracture, and revision surgery are all independently associated with inferior clinical outcomes. Subgroup analysis of adolescent patients identifies females, mild cam FAI deformities and lack of sports participation to be associated with higher rates of treatment failure.

Diagnosis and Length of Stay: Timeliness, accurate evaluation/diagnosis and cost

The ANCHOR group developed a consensus document to standardize radiograph evaluation of the young adult hip and more recently have emphasized the important role of 3D imaging. This work included:

A comprehensive review of radiographic technique and image interpretation that has served as a cornerstone contribution for surgeons, radiologists, radiology technicians and orthopaedic/radiology trainees.
Three-dimensional imaging plays a fundamental role in the evaluation of young adult hip disorders.
Low-dose computed tomography (CT) scanning is an excellent tool to precisely determine acetabular and femoral morphology as well as femoral version.

“Over the past 20 years, access to quality care for young patients with pre-arthritic hip disease has markedly improved” said Dr. Clohisy. “We now have surgeons and health care teams who can deliver a comprehensive approach to manage the full spectrum of pre-arthritic hip disease. While we’ve made great strides, we’re continuing to improve by better defining and diagnosing the conditions, determining the best indications for surgery and optimizing our surgical techniques.”

About the Kappa Delta Awards

In 1947, at its golden anniversary, the Kappa Delta Sorority established the Kappa Delta Research Fellowship in Orthopaedics, the first award ever created to honor achievements in the field of orthopaedic research. The first annual award, a single stipend of $1,000, was made available to the AAOS in 1949 and presented at the AAOS meeting in 1950. The Kappa Delta Awards have been presented by the AAOS to persons who have performed research in orthopaedic surgery that is of high significance and impact.

The sorority has since added two more awards and increased the award amounts to $20,000 each. Two awards are named for the sorority national past presidents who were instrumental in the creation of the awards: Elizabeth Winston Lanier and Ann Doner Vaughn. The third is known as the Young Investigator Award. For more information about the manuscript submission process, please visit aaos.org/kappadelta. Learn more about the Kappa Delta Foundation, here.

About the AAOS

With more than 39,000 members, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons is the world’s largest medical association of musculoskeletal specialists. The AAOS is the trusted leader in advancing musculoskeletal health. It provides the highest quality, most comprehensive education to help orthopaedic surgeons and allied health professionals at every career level to best treat patients in their daily practices. The AAOS is the source for information on bone and joint conditions, treatments and related musculoskeletal health care issues; and it leads the health care discussion on advancing quality.

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Disclosure

Funding and Conflicts of Interest

1R13AR061918-01: 2012 AAOS Femoroacetabular Impingement Research Symposium

Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) is at the forefront as a potential precursor to hip osteoarthritis. The symposium emphasized a multidisciplinary, focused approach to summarize current knowledge, develop consensus and identify research strategies for several key issues related to FAI. Focus topics included:
- The etiology, epidemiology and societal impact of hip OA
- The role of FAI in hip OA pathophysiology
- The basic science of FAI
- FAI disease screening, diagnostics, and disease staging
- The relative effectiveness and outcomes of different treatment modalities and optimal clinical science methodologies
- Strategies for future basic and clinical investigations

The current ANCHOR study (FAI-1, FAI-2) is funded by the following federal agency:

Department of Defense: Contract # W81XWH1920042 (PI: John C. Clohisy, MD)

The ongoing RCT (PAO +/- Arthroscopy) is funded by the following agency:

Canadian Institute of Health Research: Funding Reference # PJT-178351 (PI: Paul Beaulé, MD)

The ANCHOR Study Group has also been supported through the years by the following non-federal entities:

Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation
National Football League
Washington Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences Program
North American Hip Society
Industry grant programs (Smith and Nephew; Zimmer Biomet; Stryker; Pivot Medical)
International Hip Dysplasia Institute
NIH/AAOS/OREF/ORS R13 FAI consensus conference grant and proceedings

Disclosures:

Hip Society: Board or committee member
International Hip Society: Board or committee member
International Society for Hip Arthroscopy: Board or committee member
Microport: IP royalties
Microport Orthopedics, Inc.: Paid consultant
Wolters Kluwer Health – Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: Publishing royalties, financial
or material support
2018: Dr. Paul Beaulé (primary author) in year he won the Kappa Delta Award
1993, 2007: Dr. Young-Jo Kim
(co-author) in years of Kappa Delta Award

ⁱ Kotlarz, H., Gunnarsson, C. L., Fang, H. and Rizzo, J. A. 2009. Insurer and out-of-pocket costs of osteoarthritis in the US: evidence from national survey data. Arthritis Rheum. 60 (12): 3546-3553.