• Ultrasound
• Hip

Injection of medications such as corticosteroids, local anaesthetics and viscosupplements are becoming increasingly important means of diagnosis and local, targeted treatment of various hip pathologies, in particular, osteoarthritis.1 ,2 Obtaining needle access to the hip joint is challenging due to its deep anatomic location and proximity to neurovascular structures, and therefore, imaging guidance is often advocated. Fluoroscopy has been the traditional method of choice for needle placement; sonography offers additional benefits in visualisation of neurovascular structures, lack of ionising radiation, portability and possibly decreased cost. In the typical practitioner office setting, ultrasound-guided injection is the only alternative to landmark-guided injection. Comparisons of accuracy between these two methods, however, have not been directly evaluated. Hoeber et al’s3 meta-analysis compares the accuracy of these two injection methods.

Ultrasound-guided procedures have shown substantial growth in the last decade, increasing by 100.8% from 2004 to 2010, with non-radiologists accounting for 72.2% of this growth.4 Yet the …