Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) is one of the most common causes of labral and early cartilage damage in the nondysplastic hip. FAI is increasingly recognized as a cause for hip and groin pain in the young, active patient, and the surgical treatment of FAI with hip arthroscopy has risen exponentially. Although our understanding of FAI and the progression to degenerative osteoarthritis of the hip has historically been considered a mechanical "wear-and-tear" disease of an imperfectly shaped, aspherical, femoral head within a deep or overcovering acetabulum leading to cartilage injury, our understanding of the intrinsic pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying the development of FAI and joint degeneration of the hip remains poor. For example, many patients with FAI morphology may never develop hip pain or osteoarthritis; there remains more to discover regarding the pathophysiology of arthritis in the setting of FAI. Recent work has begun to identify a strong inflammatory and immunologic component to the FAI disease process that affects the hip synovium, labrum, and cartilage and may be detectable from peripheral clinical samples (blood and urine). This review highlights our current understanding of the inflammatory and immunologic contributions to FAI and potential therapeutic strategies to supplement and augment the surgical management of FAI.
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