SummaryBackgroundFemoroacetabular impingement syndrome is an important cause of hip pain in young adults. It can be treated by arthroscopic hip surgery, including reshaping the hip, or with physiotherapist-led conservative care. We aimed to compare the clinical effectiveness of hip arthroscopy with best conservative care.MethodsUK FASHIoN is a pragmatic, multicentre, assessor-blinded randomised controlled trial, done at 23 National Health Service hospitals in the UK. We enrolled patients with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome who presented at these hospitals. Eligible patients were at least 16 years old, had hip pain with radiographic features of cam or pincer morphology but no osteoarthritis, and were believed to be likely to benefit from hip arthroscopy. Patients with bilateral femoroacetabular impingement syndrome were eligible; only the most symptomatic hip was randomly assigned to treatment and followed-up. Participants were randomly allocated (1:1) to receive hip arthroscopy or personalised hip therapy (an individualised, supervised, and progressive physiotherapist-led programme of conservative care). Randomisation was stratified by impingement type and recruiting centre and was done by research staff at each hospital, using a central telephone randomisation service. Patients and treating clinicians were not masked to treatment allocation, but researchers who collected the outcome assessments and analysed the results were masked. The primary outcome was hip-related quality of life, as measured by the patient-reported International Hip Outcome Tool (iHOT-33) 12 months after randomisation, and analysed in all eligible participants who were allocated to treatment (the intention-to-treat population). This trial is registered as an International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial, number ISRCTN64081839, and is closed to recruitment.FindingsBetween July 20, 2012, and July 15, 2016, we identified 648 eligible patients and recruited 348 participants: 171 participants were allocated to receive hip arthroscopy and 177 to receive personalised hip therapy. Three further patients were excluded from the trial after randomisation because they did not meet the eligibility criteria. Follow-up at the primary outcome assessment was 92% (319 of 348 participants). At 12 months after randomisation, mean iHOT-33 scores had improved from 39·2 (SD 20·9) to 58·8 (27·2) for participants in the hip arthroscopy group, and from 35·6 (18·2) to 49·7 (25·5) in the personalised hip therapy group. In the primary analysis, the mean difference in iHOT-33 scores, adjusted for impingement type, sex, baseline iHOT-33 score, and centre, was 6·8 (95% CI 1·7–12·0) in favour of hip arthroscopy (p=0·0093). This estimate of treatment effect exceeded the minimum clinically important difference (6·1 points). There were 147 patient-reported adverse events (in 100 [72%] of 138 patients) in the hip arthroscopy group) versus 102 events (in 88 [60%] of 146 patients) in the personalised hip therapy group, with muscle soreness being the most common of the...

ABSTRACT. Intracranial vasospasm following surgical removal of intracranial tumours is rare. To our knowledge there have been no previously reported cases of delayed vasospasm occurring post debulking of epidermoid cysts. We report a case in which vasospasm led to established cerebral infarction 2 weeks postoperatively. MRI and serial magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) reliably show initial multiple stenoses in the vertebral and internal carotid arteries followed by their spontaneous normalisation. MRA imaging is now of sufficient quality to enable it to be a safe and effective means of both looking for vasospasm and monitoring its resolution.

Objectives: This study included a series of middle-aged male and female patients who presented with chronic anterior hemicord dysfunction progressing to paraplegia. Imaging of anterior thoracic cord displacement by either a dural adhesion or a dural defect with associated cord herniation is presented. Methods: This is a retrospective review of cases referred to a tertiary neuroscience centre over a 19-year period. Imaging series were classified by two experienced neuroradiologists against several criteria and correlated with clinical examination and/ or findings at surgery. Results: 16 cases were available for full review. Nine were considered to represent adhesions (four confirmed surgically) and four to represent true herniation (three confirmed surgically). In the three remaining cases the diagnosis was radiologically uncertain. Conclusion:The authors propose ''thoracic anterior spinal cord adhesion syndrome'' as a novel term to describe this patient cohort and suggest appropriate clinicoradiological features for diagnosis. Several possible aetiologies are also suggested, with disc rupture and inflammation followed by disc resorption and dural pocket formation being a possible mechanism predisposing to herniation at the extreme end of a clinicopathological spectrum. Anterior spinal cord hernia is a rare and potentially treatable cause of progressive anterior spinal cord syndrome. The cord prolapses through an anterior or anterolateral dural defect, resulting in a progressive, frequently asymmetrical, thoracic myelopathy. Patients typically present in middle age with slowly progressive neurological dysfunction relating to anterior hemicord dysfunction [1, 2]. The condition was described in 1973 by Cobb et al [3], with the first idiopathic case suggested by Wortzman et al [4] a year later; a number of case reports and small series have been published since. The exact causative mechanism has not been fully elucidated. The radiological findings of true herniation are well described but not widely recognised as the number of cases in world literature remains relatively small.In our clinical practice we have identified a number of patients who present with a clinical picture that is indistinguishable from patients with anterior spinal cord herniation and MRI demonstration of anterior cord deviation, but without imaging or surgical evidence of a true cord hernia. Based on this observation, we suspect that true hernia is positioned at the extreme end of a pathological spectrum; other cases of anterior cord deviation and wasting-possibly caused by focal vulnerability, deficiency of the anterior dura or anterior tethering of the cord-appear to present with similar clinical symptoms. Evidence in support of this assertion is the case reported by Ewald et al [5] demonstrating progressive development of an anterolateral T6 cord herniation on successive MRI examinations, with associated progression in clinical symptoms over a 2-year period prior to operative intervention. We propose that the association of thoracic myelopat...

Eight clinicians in a renal dialysis unit were asked to classify the suitability of 100 cases (some real, some simulated) for regular haemodialysis. Seven categories were used, ranging from "excellent prospect: accept without reservation" to "unequivocal rejection," based on 18 items of information previously agreed on as sufficient for the purpose. The ways in which they classified the cases differed considerably; only six cases were placed in the same category by all eight clinicians, and this was the "unequivocal rejection" category. Analysis of the extent to which they made effective use of the items showed that between three and nine items were used to a sufficient extent to reach significance for the 100 cases.

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