Acute cellulitis as local reaction to orthopedic implant - case presentation

Due to increasing number of arthroplasties and osteosynthesis, foreign body reaction to implants is a major problem for orthopedic surgeons, since it is considered to be responsible for severe complications impairing the outcome of the treatment and requiring multiple surgery. Different mechanisms have been described as being involved, and research is focused on finding biomaterials with increased biocompatibility in order to minimize these complications. The clinical aspect of this reaction is usually dominated by chronic pain, with mild functional deficits, and the diagnosis results from excluding other causes of chronic pain, such as infection, osteoarthritis, peripheral neuropathies or angiopaties. The authors present a case with unusual clinical aspect, that of acute cellulitis, when early proper treatment, represented by implant removal, allowed healing without the onset of infection or other complications; histological evaluation confirmed the reaction to implant, thus concluding that surgical treatment when intolerance to implant is suspected is the only method to prevent future negative events.