Arthroscopic removal of intrarticular acetabular exostosis and follow up at 5 years: A case report

Osteochondromas represent the most common benign bone tumors in children; they usually have isolated involvement but may also present in multiplicity as multiple hereditary exostoses (MHEs) disease, an autosomal dominant disorder with a prevalence of 1 in 50000 in the general population. In MHEs the growing physis (distal femur, proximal tibia, forearm, proximal humerus) are commonly affected and intraarticular lesions are rare; even if osteochondromas often appear to be painless, slow growing tumors, functional impairment is a possible complication because of bone growth reduction, joint deformation and restricted motion, neurovascular compression. Therefore, surgical excision may be required: in literature only few cases of intraarticular hip exostoses are described, and their treatment is heterogeneous; moreover, long follow up are lacking regarding arthroscopic removal. Hereby we present the case of a 9-year old patient affected by MHE with involvement of left acetabulum, its treatment by arthroscopy and the satisfactory result at 5 years of follow up.