[Periprosthetic infections in systemic inflammatory rheumatic disease. Review article on diagnostics and therapy]

Patients with an inflammatory disease have an elevated risk for periprosthetic joint infections due to impairment of the immune system caused by the disease itself in combination with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARD). These infections can cause life-threatening sepsis. Unfortunately recommendations on the diagnostics and treatment are mostly based on studies with a level of evidence grade IV or V.

This article gives an overview of recent publications evaluating the level of evidence of recommendations on diagnostics and treatment of periprosthetic joint infections in patients with inflammatory diseases.

A systematic literature search was performed in the Medline database in January and February 2014. The search included all articles on diagnostic and/or treatment of periprosthetic joint infections in patients with inflammatory diseases. Articles in languages other than English or German were excluded, as well as case reports, studies with less than 20 patients and articles only referring to patients with inflammatory diseases without periprosthetic infections.

Nearly all recommendations are based on retrospective studies or expert opinions (level of evidence IV or V). Conflicting results are common but there is good evidence on preoperative aspiration of joint fluid (level of evidence I) and a doubled risk of joint infections under treatment with anti-tumor necrosis factor (level of evidence II). An increased mortality has been reported in multiple studies. Two-stage revision seems to have a slightly better outcome than retention of prosthesis or one-stage revision. Generally, therapeutic recommendations for periprosthetic joint infections lack a good level of evidence. Future studies are urgently needed.