Should trochanteric osteotomy be always avoided during safe hip dislocation?

In a recent article published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Sculco and colleagues report on a new potentially useful approach for surgical hip dislocation (1). “Safe” surgical dislocation has been proposed by Prof. Ganz (2) as a technique to expose the full acetabulum and to treat pathologies like femoracetabular impingement. In the last decade, the indications for this technique have become wider and, at present, selected cases (Pipkin and acetabular fractures) (3,4), Perthes’ disease and Slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) (5) are commonly treated via surgical dislocation.