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Published on: December 3, 2017
Intraoperative subcutaneous wound closing culture sample: a predicting factor for periprosthetic infection after hip-
Christian B Frank1, Martin Adams, Markus Kroeber
1Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics, BG Trauma Centre Ludwigshafen at the University of Heidelberg, Ludwig-Guttmann-Str. 13, 67071 Ludwigshafen, Germany. christian.b.frank@t-online.de
Introduction:
It is unknown whether intraoperative subcutaneous wound closing culture samples (WCCS) are useful to predict periprosthetic joint infection (PJI).
Method:
Here we prospectively followed 167 out of a total of 175 consecutive patients with primary total hip (THR) or knee replacement (TKR) between 01/2002 and 12/2002 for a mean follow-up period of 5 years; of those patients, n = 159 (96.8%) underwent WCCS.
Results:
The results showed a positive WCCS in n = 9 cases (5.8%). Nine patients developed postoperative wound complication and required revision surgery. Two patients developed signs of a deep periprosthetic infection; however, only one out of nine patients had initial positive WCCS.
Conclusion:
Our results thus indicate that WCCS during primary joint replacement is not an appropriate predictive method to identify patients at risk for periprosthetic joint infections.
