Dear Members,

EHS Webinars are coming! Our Past President Dr Jean-Alain Epinette introduces the project below.

The call for abstracts is OPEN for our EHS Congress 2023 in Bern, Switzerland (12-13th October). Meanwhile, the report on the successful Osteotomies Around the Hip Hands On Cadaver Course in Lisbon, Portugal (with EHS patronage) is available HERE; thanks to our Nat Rep Dr Pedro Dantas. And earlier this week EHS had an interesting session at DKOU in Berlin on “Future Hip Surgery – Old Disease, New Treatment?” Moderators were EHS President, Prof Klaus Siebenrock & EHS Nat Rep for Germany, Prof Fritz Thorey:-

• Open or arthroscop. FAI treatment: Recommendation, Prof Klaus Siebenrock (Bern)
• Mini open anterior labrum transplantation, Prof Manuel Ribas Fernández (Barcelona)
• Patient expectations in joint replacement, Prof Fritz Thorey (Heidelberg)
• Resurfacing: Lessons and Findings in literature, Prof Klaus-Peter Günther (Dresden)
• Minimally invasive hip surgery: evidence and future perspectives, Dr Florian Pohlig (Munich)
• Robotics in THA – Future or just a short trend? Dr Marco Ezechieli (Salzkotten)

Now it is time to register for the MAST 9 Advanced Arthroplasty Surgery Course in Thessaloniki, Greece, an EHS-organised event (16-18th December 2022) presenting 80 international speakers, with MAKO and ROSA robotic systems on display for practical sessions, plus hands on Exeter Hip Course hip and knee revision practicals. Not to be missed.

We warmly welcome two new International EHS Members: Dr Kensuke Fukushima from Sagamihara in Japan, and Mr Raymond Crowe from Richmond, Australia. And finally, in our Q&A series below, we get to know our new EduCommer Dr Geert Meermans from Berchem, Belgium. Thanks to him.

Assoc Prof Stanislav Bondarenko, EHS Secretary General

EHS Webinars

Who among us has not wished at one time or another to see a particularly interesting movie or interview again? This is also undoubtedly the case for the best lectures already presented at congresses or scientific days. And thus, here we are with our intention to offer our best presentations as a replay via EHS Webinars.

“European Hip Society aims to stay at the cutting edge of knowledge and to create a sound link between every surgeon interested in hip surgery, in Europe and beyond”… A life can obviously exist between each biennial EHS Congress. Hence, our EHS Webinars – to take place throughout the year – will establish a real scientific link within the Hip Scientific Community.

An “EHS Webinar Task Force” has been set up, bringing together several members of our three committees (Executive, Education and Scientific), including some members particularly involved in the promotion of best scientific presentations already given during our previous EHS symposia, scientific days and congresses.

Each member of this “Task Force” offers their best lectures (already given) on various subjects, creating a global thesaurus and allowing for a selection, classified by subjects or themes. Each month, a 60min webinar will propose three of these “top” lectures, which will be presented by their authors. In addition to the moderators, all participants connected remotely will be able to debate via the “usual chat”… Replays will also be available!

Eight EHS Webinars per year will be held in partnership with MO Journal, and of course, all details and additional information will be provided through our EHS website and this Newsletter.

“Bringing Orthopaedic Hip Surgeons Together”… The kick-off is January 2023… See you there!!!

In my current practice as a hip surgeon, I see mostly patients with osteoarthritis of the hip and young(er) patients with femoroacetabular impingement. We also treat a lot of elderly patients with proximal femoral fractures and see more and more patients with periprosthetic fractures.

The elderly mother of one of our secretary’s was scheduled for a cup revision, but intraoperatively the 26mm femoral head could not be removed from the massive cementless stem. I ended up doing a full revision and after removal of the stem there was an intraoperative femoral fracture in osteopenic bone. Fortunately, she’s recovered very well in the meantime.

Despite the fact that in our country relatively little large head metal-on-metal implants have been used, these are always very difficult in case of a massive soft tissue reaction. I still remember one patient (from St Elsewhere) with a massive soft tissue lesion, abductor weakness and recurrent dislocations. A colleague and I did his revision with resection of this massive cystic lesion. Unfortunately, his abductors were gone and he never regained his normal function.

Every happy patient is very rewarding, but one that comes to mind is a 19-year young woman with bilateral osteoarthritis due to juvenile rheumatoid arthritis coming in to my office in a wheelchair. Because of her young age, she couldn’t find someone who’d be willing to help her. She has bilateral THA for more than 10 years now, has three children and sends me a postcard every year with a photo of their family on one of their hiking holidays during the summertime. This always reminds me that what we do can really have an impact on people’s quality of life.

It is always so frustrating when a patient comes to visit you, but after clinical examination and additional testing you can’t find a good explanation for their current symptoms.

I’ve had the pleasure to be in touch with [EHS Member] George Grammatopoulos and Moritz Innmann for a couple of years, and their recent work on spinopelvic characteristics has had a fundamental impact on our knowledge on this difficult topic. It took me a couple of readings to grasp their concept, but this will have a major impact on our daily practice as hip surgeons.

References:

I love long-distance running and after finally overcoming a couple of injuries I will be running a half-marathon in a couple of weeks and hope to be able to run another marathon by the end of 2023. During the COVID pandemic, my friends and I discovered padel and enjoy our weekly game with a Belgian “special” beer afterwards. Whenever I have time in the weekend, I love to use my kamado for some low and slow cooking for our family and/or friends.

I am currently reading “Antwerp, the glory years” by Michael Pye about the history of the golden 16th century of the town I was born and raised in and “Out of the world” the debut novel of Karl Ove Knausgard of whom I can strongly recommend his autobiographical “My struggle” novels.