Modern Irrigation/Debridement Yields Good Results for Early Post-THA Infection

Hip Debridement for OBuzzNowadays, chronic deep periprosthetic joint infections (PJIs) are typically treated with 2-stage exchange arthroplasty, but what about acute PJIs? In the December 6, 2017 edition of JBJS, Bryan et al. report on a retrospective cohort study of acute infections after hip arthroplasty. The results suggest we’ve come a long way in identifying patients with early infections and that contemporary irrigation-and-debridement protocols are more successful than older methods.

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.”

2 thoughts on “Modern Irrigation/Debridement Yields Good Results for Early Post-THA Infection

  1. So in Early Post-THA Infection the new aspect in contemporary treatment with component retention is routine modular head and liner exchange?

    1. Seventy percent of the 90 hips in this study were treated with irrigation/debridement plus modular head and liner exchange. Per p. 2013, “the decision to exchange modular components was made intraoperatively and depended on component position and availability of compatible modular implants.”

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