Laboratory contamination affecting orthopedic surgical management

Bacterial contamination of pathology specimens can occur during collection, transport, or laboratory processing. Recognized sources of laboratory contamination include contamination of microscopy slides before use and contamination of reagents. We present 2 cases where contamination of glass beads used in the microbiology department as part of the tissue preparation process for urgent Gram stain led to unnecessary revision surgery. Contamination of the glass beads alone has not been cited elsewhere in the literature, and the authors feel that this needs to be brought to the attention of arthroplasty surgeons and microbiologists.