The researchers studied 6-year outcomes in 90 hips that had undergone either total or hemiarthroplasty and that were determined to have either acute early postoperative infections (n=66) or acute hematogenous infections (n=24). All the infected hips were managed with either irrigation, debridement, and modular head and liner exchange (70%) or with irrigation and debridement alone (30%). The authors stratified the patients into those without comorbidities (A), those with 1 or 2 comorbidities (B), and those with >2 comorbidities (C). Postoperatively, patients were treated with broad-spectrum intravenous antibiotics, followed by targeted therapy administered by infectious disease specialists.
Of the 90 acute infections, failure—defined as uneradicated infection, subsequent removal of any component for infection, unplanned second wound debridement for ongoing infection, or infection-related mortality—occurred in 15 hips (17%). Of those 15, 9 required component removal. The chances of treatment failure were slightly higher in cases of hematogenous infection (21%), compared with acute early postoperative infection (15%), but that difference was not statistically significant. Significant comorbidity-related failure-rate differences were found: failure occurred in 8% of the grade-A patients, 16% of grade-B patients, and 44% of grade-C patients. The most common infecting organism was methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA).
From this overall 6-year success rate of 83%, the authors conclude that “with modern inclusion criteria for acute infection, modern surgical techniques, and modern antibiotic therapy…the rate of success was higher than in most historic reports.”