Preventing Infection in Total Joint Arthroplasty

Abstract

As the “at-risk” population pool is predicted to expand dramatically, so too will the burden of infection as recent epidemiologic studies have suggested that both the incidence and the prevalence of periprosthetic joint infection may be increasing over time in the United States^1,7,16. Kurtz et al., using a Nationwide Inpatient Sample database, showed that, between 1990 and 2004, a nearly twofold increase was observed in the incidence of infection for both hip and knee arthroplasty in the United States¹⁶. The reason for this increase is multifactorial and includes both host and agent-related factors. Improvement in the medical care of patients, especially those who …