Hip-Spine Syndrome: a cadaveric analysis between osteoarthritis of the lumbar spine and hip joints

Abstract Background Authors have recently proposed the concept of “hip-spine syndrome,” however there exists limited evidence available to differentiate whether these concomitant arthritides are due to anatomic/structural causes, or systemic/metabolic effects. Exploring this relationship has important implications during the evaluation and treatment of both spine and hip disorders—a common clinical presentation of many patients. The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the individual contribution of hip arthritis towards the development of spine arthritis, with knee arthritis also being analyzed as a negative(systemic) control. Hypothesis Hip and spine arthritis are caused by both metabolic and independent causes Methods A large, well-organized osteological database was queried, and osteoarthritis of the spine, hip, and knee joints was quantified using a validated scoring criteria. Six-hundred and twenty-five specimens were chosen for analysis. Multivariate linear regression models were created to quantify the independent contributions of age, gender, race, height, and arthritis of the spine and hip joints. Results Age was the strongest predictor of arthritis at each site (standardized betas >0.281, p