Characterization of hip and knee arthroplasties and factors associated with infection

DOES TOPICAL USE OF GENTAMICIN REDUCE THE INFECTION RATE IN PRIMARY TOTAL HIP ARTHROPLASTY?

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether the topical use of gentamicin reduces periprosthetic joint infection rates in primary total hip arthroplasty (THA).

METHODS

We retrospectively evaluated two cohorts of patients who underwent primary THA in a university hospital, with a minimum of 1-year postoperative follow-up and full clinical, laboratory, and radiological documentation. Patients who underwent operation in the first 59 months of the study period (263 hips) received only intravenous cefazolin as antibiotic prophylaxis (Cef group), and those who underwent operation in the following 43 months (170 hips) received intravenous cefazolin plus topical gentamicin directly applied on the wound as antibiotic prophylaxis (Cef + Gen group). For the diagnosis of periprosthetic joint infection, we used the criteria of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data were analyzed using the Fisher exact test, and p values of <0.05 were considered significant.

RESULTS

Thirteen hips (4.9%) in the Cef group and eight hips (4.7%) in the Cef + Gen group presented periprosthetic joint infection. Statistical analysis revealed no difference between the infection rates (p = 1.0).

CONCLUSION

Topical gentamicin as used in this study did not reduce periprosthetic joint infection rates in primary THA. Level of Evidence III, Retrospective comparative study.

Risk factors for early revision after total hip and knee arthroplasty: National observational study from a surgeon and population perspective

Aims

To identify predictors of early revision (within 3 years of the index operation) for hip and knee replacement (HR, KR) from both surgeon and population perspectives.

Patients and methods

Hierarchical logistic regression on national administrative data for England for index procedures between April 2009 and March 2014.

Results

There were 315,273 index HR procedures and 374,530 index KR procedures for analysis. Three-year revision rates were 2.1% for HR and 2.2% for KR. The highest odds ratios for HR were for 3+ previous emergency admissions, drug abuse, Parkinson’s disease, resurfacing and ages under 60; for KR these were patellofemoral or partial joint replacement, 3+ previous emergency admissions, paralysis and ages under 60. Smaller effects were found for other comorbidities such as obesity (HR) and diabetes (KR). From a population perspective, the only population attributable fractions over 5% were for male gender, uncemented total hip replacements and partial knee or patellofemoral replacements.

Conclusions

Meeting the rising demand for revision surgery is a challenge for healthcare leaders and policymakers. Our findings suggest optimising patients pre-operatively and improving patient selection for primary arthroplasty may reduce the burden of early revision of arthroplasty. Our study gives useful information on the additional risks of various comorbidities and procedures, which enables a more informed consent process.

Clinical relevance

Surgeons should make patients with certain risk factors such as age and procedure type aware of their higher revision risk as part of shared decision-making.

Prophylaxis with nasal decolonization in patients submitted to total knee and hip arthroplasty: systematic review and meta-analysis

Despite the evolution of the total knee and hip arthroplasty surgery, high postoperative complication rates in the short and long term still persist. Infection is one of the most challenging complications; due to its gravity and treatment difficulties, prophylaxis protocols have been created to decrease its incidence. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of the prophylaxis protocol for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus decolonization of the nares in patients previously identified by swab cultures, who were to be submitted to a total joint arthroplasty. A systematic review with meta-analysis was conducted, following the PRISMA-2015 protocol, using the descriptors: "arthroplasty" and "nasal decolonization," or "joint arthroplasty" and "decolonization," or "joint arthroplasty" and "nasal decolonization," for final selection of four observational studies from 79 references identified. This study included a total sample of 10,179 patients, divided in two groups: the control group (4788 patients) and intervention group (5391 patients). It was observed that the intervention group, in which prophylaxis with nasal decolonization was used, 59 (1.09%) of the patients developed a surgical site infection, while in the control group there were 86 cases of surgical site infection (1.79%). This trend repeated itself in all articles, showing no publication biases, forming a homogeneous sample. The use of a prophylaxis protocol for decolonization of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, reduced surgical site infection cases by approximately 39%.

CLINICAL DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF TOTAL KNEE ARTHROPLASTY IN A UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

OBJECTIVE

To assess socio-demographic characteristics of patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in a public university hospital, evaluating the outcome infection and associated factors.

METHOD

A retrospective study was carried out with 78 patients undergoing TKA, from 2013 to 2014. The socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients were collected. Comparison between infected and non-infected patients was performed to find out which variables were possibly associated to this complication.

RESULT

Of 81 arthroplasties performed, patients were older (mean age 64 years), women (79%), with primary osteoarthritis as main etiology (87.6%) and most had comorbidities (82.7%). Infection occurred in 16% of patients, and this outcome associated with age older than 65 years (p=0.023) and the occurrence of deep vein thrombosis (p=0.027).

CONCLUSION

Patients undergoing TKA are mostly elderly women with primary osteoarthritis in the knee and comorbidities who developed infection in 16% of cases. More studies need to be conducted aimed at creating specific protocols in order to improve the quality of clinical practice. Level of Evidence III, Retrospective Comparative Study.