Success rates for hip labral tear surgery. Know the data.

Jan 23, 2023

None of the conservative treatments for your hip labral tear worked. This means that the only option left is surgery. You’ve been going back and forth for weeks or months. Get the surgery. Try more PT. Get another injection.

If only there was some easy way to know how other people felt after getting surgery. If there was a 99% success rate for hip labral tear surgery then no brainer right? As you might have discovered, that information is not easy to find. The data is all over the place and it’s difficult to make sense of what the actual success rates for hip labral tear surgery are.

Well my dear hipster, you’ve arrived in the right place. Over the last 11 years, I’ve dug DEEP into the data to get a solid picture of how most people feel after getting surgery.

Hip labral tear surgery success rates

What most people diagnosed with a hip labral tear want to know is quite simple. Will surgery get rid of their hip pain? I get it. When I was diagnosed with a hip labral tear 11 years ago, that’s what I wanted to know too.

In one 1999 study, researchers found that most patients were not satisfied after getting surgery. Out of 28 patients, only 13 (46%) reported “good to excellent results.”

Then there is another troubling study published in 2009 that followed up with patients who received surgery for a labral tear and hip dysplasia. Out of 34 patients, 24 failed to see a reduction in pain after surgery. Even more alarming, 16 of the 34 patients had to get another surgery at the time of follow up.

To be fair, there are studies that show better results, like one where 89% of patients reported “clinical improvement.” One fact is clear: there is no consistency in the literature. If a treatment truly worked, wouldn’t we see more consistency in these studies?