THURSDAY, Dec. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- X-rays don't detect hip arthritis in many patients, resulting in delayed diagnosis and treatment, researchers report.
The researchers looked at information from almost 4,500 Americans taking part in two arthritis studies. In one study, only 16 percent of patients with hip pain had X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis in the hip and only 21 percent of those with X-ray evidence of arthritis had hip pain.
In the other study, the rates were 9 percent and 24 percent, respectively, according to the findings reported recently in the journal BMJ.
"The majority of older subjects with high suspicion for clinical hip osteoarthritis did not have radiographic hip osteoarthritis, suggesting that many older persons with hip osteoarthritis might be missed if diagnosticians relied on hip radiographs to determine if hip pain was due to osteoarthritis," said study corresponding author Dr.
