Dr. T. Sean Lynch Featured on JAAOS Unplugged Podcast
T. Sean Lynch, MD, was a featured guest on Episode 20 of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS) Podcast to discuss his recent publication titled "Best Practice Guidelines for Hip Arthroscopy in Femoroacetabular Impingement: Results of a Delphi Process."
The study established best practice guidelines by the delphi approach to find consensus among experienced hip arthroscopy experts via the results of systematic review and meta-analysis. The scope included preoperative recommendations, intraoperative practices, and postoperative protocols.
“These Best Practice Guidelines brought together thought leaders in the world of hip arthroscopy across the country. We were able to establish consensus for the non-surgical as well as the surgical management for patients with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI)," said Dr. Lynch. "Our final product was a checklist of pre-operative recommendations, intra-operative practices and post-operative protocols that can help sports medicine providers, orthopedic surgeons, athletic trainers as well as physiotherapists that take care of patients with these athletic hip conditions. This was a huge undertaking by everyone involved and as a result will allow us to provide better and safer care for our patients.”
Dr. Lynch spoke with JAAOS Unplugged Podcast host, Dr. Cory Smith, about the impetus for the study as well as how the study developed over time and the recommendations that were derived. For hip arthroscopy. Due to a lack of randomized trials, Dr. Lynch and his team of experts used the delphi approach to develop the guidelines. The process included gathering a foundation of knowledge on hip arthroscopy, survery hip arthroscopu experts on their practice, creating non leading and impartial recommendations using the likert scale to find agreement and lack of consensus and meeting in person to finalize the guidelines using a nominal group approach.
The guidelines have become an instrumental tool for sports medicine providers that treat patients with femoroacetabular impingement. Lynch presented these guidelines at the 2019 AAOS Annual Meeting, 2019 AOSSM Annual Meeting, 2018, and 2019 Vail Hip Symposium as well as an Invited Lecture at the 2018 ISHA (International Society for Hip Arthroscopy) in Australia. The guidelines also helped initiate a Global Consensus Statement that was recently published.
“In the world of orthopedic surgery, hip arthroscopy is still in its infancy. We have been able to rely on the past work of our senior authors to demonstrate that this procedure (when appropriately indicated) is a safe surgical technique to help treat patient with labral tears in the setting of hip impingement,” said Dr. Lynch. “When this was first presented at the Vail Hip Symposium in 2018, the leadership of the International Hip Preservation Society (ISHA) wanted to expand the scope of the project to fulfill the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation that standardized interventions should be developed for patient safety utilizing evidence-based processes and best practice initiatives. It’s humbling to think that our initial work has led to sport medicine physicians to better deliver high quality, efficient care for patients with these athletic hip injuries.”