Poor utility of serum interleukin-6 levels to predict indolent periprosthetic shoulder infections

Infection after shoulder arthroplasty can present a diagnostic challenge. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels in diagnosis of periprosthetic infection in patients undergoing revision shoulder arthroplasty.

We prospectively enrolled 69 patients who underwent revision shoulder arthroplasty at one institution. All patients underwent a standard preoperative and intraoperative workup for infection, which included shoulder aspirate culture, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein level, tissue culture, and frozen section analysis. In addition, serum levels of IL-6 were measured preoperatively in all patients. Infection classification was divided into 4 groups, (1) definite, (2) probable, (3) possible, and (4) no infection, on the basis of previously reported criteria using intraoperative cultures and preoperative and intraoperative findings of infections.

Of the 69 patients, 24 were classified as having a definite or probable infection. Propionibacterium acnes was the offending organism for the majority of these cases (20 of 24, 83%). IL-6 was not a sensitive marker of infection for these patients (sensitivity: 3 of 24, 12%; specificity: 3 of 45, 93%). The sensitivity of serum IL-6 was lower compared with erythrocyte sedimentation rate (sensitivity: 10 of 24, 42%; specificity: 37 of 45, 82%) and C-reactive protein level (sensitivity: 11 of 24, 46%; specificity: 42 of 45, 93%). For the non-P. acnes cases (1 Staphylococcus aureus, 1 Enterobacter cloacae, 2 coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species), the sensitivity of IL-6 was 25% (1 of 4).

Serum IL-6 is not an effective marker for diagnosis of infection in shoulder arthroplasty. On the basis of this large prospective study, we do not recommend its use as a preoperative diagnostic test in patients undergoing revision shoulder arthroplasty.