Late hematogenous infections after total knee arthroplasty: experience with 3013 consecutive total knees

Newer technologies have seen a gradual decline in mechanical causes for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) failures. As these mechanical mechanisms of failure have slowly diminished, infections have come to comprise an even larger proportion of complications in knee replacement surgery. This article presents a retrospective review of a single surgeon's incidence of late hematogenous infections after 3013 consecutive primary TKAs using a standard surgical technique. Fifteen late hematogenous infections were found in 14 (0.5%) patients at an average of 10 years postoperatively. The surgical protocol is reported and the late infections are analyzed for their etiologies and outcomes.