Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Athletic Hip Pain

Athletes with hip pain can have a variety of potential causes of the pain, including intra-articular pathology such as labral or cartilaginous injuries, as often seen in the setting of femoroacetabular impingement, surrounding soft-tissue pathology such as muscle or tendon injuries, and referred pain from stress injuries of the pubic bones, often from traction enthesitis from the adductors. With the use of dedicated surface coils, high-resolution noncontrast magnetic resonance imaging of the hip can provide detailed information regarding articular cartilage and labral injuries in the athlete with hip pain. The addition of a fat suppression sequence helps to identify areas of bone marrow edema that may be indicative of stress reaction or fracture. The three-dimensional capabilities of magnetic resonance imaging further afford the evaluation of osseous morphology of the hip, including the degree of osseous proliferative change and potential offset of the femoral head neck junction in the setting of femoroacetabular impingement.

Keywords: hip, MRI, labral tears, femoroacetabular impingement, sportsman’s hernia