Abstract
Aim
To assess the influence of route of antibiotic administration on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) of individuals treated for hip and knee infections in the OVIVA multi-centre randomised controlled trial.
Method
This study was designed to determine whether oral antibiotic therapy is non-inferior to intravenous (IV) therapy when given for the first six weeks of treatment for bone and joint infections. Of the 1054 participants recruited from 26 centres, 462 were treated for periprosthetic or native joint infections of the hip or knee. There were 243 participants in the IV antibiotic cohort and 219 in the oral cohort. Functional outcome was determined at baseline through to one year using the Oxford Hip/Knee Score (OHS/OKS) as joint-specific measures (0 the worse and 48 the best). An adjusted quantile regression model was used to compare functional outcome scores.
Results
Of the 214 participants in the hip sub-group, 110 were randomized to IV antibiotics and 104 to oral. Of the 248 participants in the knee cohort, 133 were treated with IV antibiotics and 115 with oral. The OHS/OKS questionnaire response rate was 68%. Baseline median OHS of the hip sub-group was 14 (Interquartile range [IQR]:8–22) for the IV cohort and 12 (IQR:7–22) for the oral cohort. The one-year median OHS was 35 (IQR: 23–44) for the IV cohort and 27 (IQR:16–40) for the oral cohort with no significant difference between cohorts (p=0.181). The baseline median OKS of the knee sub-group, was 14 (IQR:8–23) for the IV cohort and 12 (IQR:8–21) for the oral cohort. The one-year median OKS was 24 (IQR: 15–35) for the IV cohort and 27 (IQR:17–38) for the oral cohort with a statistically significant difference in favour of oral therapy (p=0.036).
Conclusions
At one year, there was improvement in functional outcome of patients treated with either IV or oral antibiotics in this RCT. It suggests that joint function generally improved progressively following the start of treatment irrespective of the route of antibiotic therapy. Functional outcome of patients with hip infections was similar irrespective of the route of antibiotic therapy, whereas there was statistically greater improvement in functional outcome of patients with knee infections treated with oral antibiotics. The PROMS findings of this trial support the clinical findings (i.e. infection eradication rates) and suggest that there is no advantage of using prolonged intravenous therapy as compared to oral therapy in the early treatment of infections around the hip and knee joint.
