Lateral hip pain has several different labels including trochanteric bursitis, gluteal tendinopathy, trochanteric tendinobursitis, and greater trochanter pain syndrome. Regardless of the name, patients with pain of the lateral hip present in various settings—primary care, sports medicine, orthopaedics, rheumatology, and spine and rehabilitation medicine. In the linked randomised controlled trial (doi:10.1136/bmj.b1088), Cohen and colleagues compared corticosteroid injections that were fluoroscopically guided with those that were anatomically guided in the treatment of greater trochanteric pain syndrome.1

The condition is common and often chronic,2 3 and the diagnosis is overlooked in many cases. One in five patients referred to a tertiary care orthopaedic spine centre because of low back pain were diagnosed with greater trochanter pain syndrome, a diagnosis that had been missed by the referring general practitioners and specialty surgeons.4

The absence of a uniform terminology for this common condition reflects our ignorance of both the pathology and the source of pain. This applies not only to greater trochanter pain syndrome, …