Hip Impingement: Repair of Hip Labral Tear Using Soft Anchors Animation

Hip Impingement: Repair of Hip Labral Tear Using Soft Anchors Animation

This is an animation of a hip labral repair using soft suture anchors on a left hip. After creating the small skin incisions and placing cannulas to easily get down into the joint, the surgeon first shaves down the bone on the socket side, just a little to prepare to insert the anchors. In the case of a pincer lesion, there will be more bone to remove, so the surgeon will need a little more time to smooth everything out.

Then, a hollow drill guide is brought in through the cannula and placed at the spot where the first anchor will go. A small drill bit makes a hole in the bone, and the anchor is brought down through the guide. The surgeon gently taps the anchor into the bone. Let's take a quick look at how this particular anchor holds the tissue against the bone to heal.

Once the anchor is in the bone, the blue suture gets passed around the tissue that needs to be fixed. The end of the blue suture gets put through the loop of the black and white stripe suture. When the stripe suture gets pulled out, the blue suture passes back through itself in the anchor. Through a small finger trap type mechanism, the surgeon can pull the blue suture to make it as tight as they want without having to tie any knots. The extra suture gets cut off.

Here's how it looks in the hip. The surgeon places the blue suture from the top down behind the labrum, between the tissue and the bone, with an instrument called a suture passer. They will then grab the suture from the other side of the labrum and pull it out of the cannula to the outside of the body. The end of the blue suture goes through the loop of the striped suture and the other end of the striped suture is pulled. Watch as the blue suture goes down into the anchor and back out again. The striped suture is no longer needed and gets thrown away. The long blue suture tail is cut and the surgeon repeats these steps for as many anchors that are needed to complete the repair.