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End-stage ankle osteoarthritis often significantly impacts patients' quality of life. This can be managed surgically either by ankle arthrodesis or total ankle arthroplasty (TAA). Although ankle arthrodesis is considered by some as the standard-of-care surgical option for this condition, it restricts range of motion and may lead to accelerated osteoarthritis of neighboring joints. Better understanding of ankle biomechanics, the biological effects of orthopaedic devices, and new surgical techniques have led to significant improvements in the designs of TAAs, and over the last several decades TAA has been used increasingly to treat patients with end-stage tibiotalar osteoarthritis. However, complication and ultimate failure rates remain greater than those seen with total knee and hip arthroplasty, and imaging is often critical in determining whether a prosthesis is beginning to fail. As a result, imagers should be familiar with the basic types of TAAs in clinical use, the normal radiographic appearances, as well as the common complications seen with this procedure.

Hip arthroplasty is a common and largely successful surgical procedure, often used for the treatment of advanced osteoarthritis. Imaging plays a key role in routine postoperative imaging surveillance as well as the evaluation of post-arthroplasty pain. Radiographs are the first-line imaging modality and may be followed by computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recent advancements in imaging techniques allow for metal artifact reduction on CT and MRI. A variety of complications can arise in the setting of arthroplasty: mechanical loosening, component wear-induced synovitis and osteolysis, adverse local tissue reaction, infection, periprosthetic fracture, implant dislocation and/or component displacement, tendinopathy, and neurovascular injury. This article reviews normal and abnormal imaging findings of hip arthroplasty.

Postoperative infections of the knee are uncommon but may occur with joint arthroplasties, fracture fixation, or after arthroscopic procedures. The ultimate diagnosis is made by joint aspiration or tissue sampling. Joint aspiration and tissue sampling can be performed under imaging guidance or intraoperatively. Imaging is an important adjunct to clinical and laboratory findings and should start with radiographs. Cross-sectional imaging including magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, computed tomography (CT), nuclear studies, and ultrasound (US) are frequently used if the diagnosis is in doubt and to evaluate the extent of disease. We discuss the current algorithm in the diagnosis of various postoperative infections of the knee joint. The article addresses the utility of radiography, MR imaging, CT, US, and the most commonly used nuclear studies in the diagnosis of various postoperative knee infections and the imaging appearances of these infections on each of these diagnostic modalities.

Athletic pubalgia is a frequently encountered syndrome for clinicians who treat active patients participating in a wide variety of athletic endeavors worldwide. Pathologies associated with this clinical scenario span anatomically from the pubic symphysis to the hip and include a myriad of poorly understood and incompletely described musculoskeletal entities, many of which are centered about the pubic symphysis and its tendinous attachments. In this article, we discuss the relevant anatomy and pathophysiology for the most frequently encountered of these disorders, using magnetic resonance (MR) images as a guide. We describe an MR imaging protocol tailored to clinical athletic pubalgia. We then review reproducible MRI patterns of pathology about the pubic symphysis, the rectus abdominis/adductor aponeurosis and the inguinal ring, as well as a group of clinically confounding entities remote from the symphysis but visible by MRI.