Result of Shelf Acetabuloplasty in Adults: 20 Years of Follow-Up

The current study was conducted in order to examine the effectiveness of shelf procedure in symptomatic adult patients due to hip dysplasia. This study is retrospective and was performed on patients who had undergone surgery by one orthopaedic surgical team during the past 20 years. Twenty-three men and twenty-three women were enrolled in the study with a mean age of 29.3 years at the time of operation and they were followed up for a mean of 9.3 years. Shelf acetabuloplasty was performed unilateral in 30 patients and bilateral in 16 patients. Results demonstrated that mean Harris Hip Score and CE Angle significantly improved after the operation, while osteoarthritis got more severe post-operatively. The severity of osteoarthritis and the Harris Hip Score respectively significantly increased and decreased 14 years after the operation. Results also demonstrated that as the age of the patient was less, and the patient was more satisfied and the degree of osteoarthritis was less at the time of the operation, the mean change of the Harris Hip Score would be higher and the results of the operation would be more favorable. The preoperative osteoarthritis was significantly worse in to-be-operated hips than their control hips, this difference was not significant after the operation. And finally, although Harris Hip Score has been lower in to-be-operated hips before the operation, it was higher in these very same hips than the control hips after the operation. In short, according to this study although the shelf acetabuloplasty is a salvage procedure and cannot cover the femoral head concentrically like the modern redirectional osteotomies, but it is an effective procedure for a young patient to postpone the progression of the hip osteoarthritis (OA) once it occurs in order to perform reconstructive surgeries later when justified.