Abstract
Aim
The duration of systemic antibiotic therapy following first-stage surgery is contentious. Our Institution's philosophy is to perform an aggressive debridement, use high concentration targeted antibiotics through cement beads and systemic prophylactic antibiotics alone. In the presence of significant soft tissue infection or microbiological diagnostic uncertainty; systemic antibiotics may be prescribed for 5 days whilst awaiting tissue culture results. The aim of this study was to assess the success of our philosophy in the management of PJI of the hip using our two-stage protocol.
Method
A retrospective review of our Institution's prospectively-collected database was performed to identify those patients who were planned to undergo a two-stage hip revision procedure for PJI. All patients had a confirmed diagnosis of PJI as per the major criteria of MSIS 2013, a minimum 5-years follow up and were assessed at the time of review using the MSIS working group outcome-reporting tool (2018). They were then grouped into “successful” or “unsuccessful” (suppressive antibiotics, further revision for infection, death within 1 year).
Results
299 intended two-stage hip revisions in 289 patients (6 repeat ipsilateral two-stage, 4 bilateral two-stage) met our inclusion criteria. 258 (86%) patients proceeded to 2nd stage surgery. Median follow up was 10.7 years. 91% success rate was observed for those patients who underwent reimplantation; dropping to 86% when including the patients who did not proceed to second stage surgery. The median duration of post-operative systemic antibiotics following first stage surgery was 5 days (IQR 5–9). No significant difference in outcome was observed in patients who received either; < / = 48 hours (86%; n=70) compared to > 48 hours antibiotics (86%; n=229; p=0.96) or </= 5 days of antibiotics (88%; n=202) compared to > 5 days antibiotics (82%; p=0.38). A significant majority had gram-positive (88%) infection with 30% being polymicrobial. Greater success rates were observed for gram-positive PJI (87%); than for gram-negative PJI (84%) and mixed Gram infection (72%; p=0.098).
Conclusion
Aggressive surgical debridement with high concentration, targeted local antibiotic delivery at time of first stage hip surgery, without prolonged systemic antibiotics, provides a high rate of success, responsible antibiotic stewardship and reduced hospital costs.
