Prosthetic joint infections—a need for consolidation?

During the last couple of years several articles on prosthetic joint infection (PJI) have been published in Acta Orthopaedica, ranging for example from papers on experimental studies, new surgical techniques, diagnostic modalities, risk factors, retrospective studies on treatment results, and registry studies (Geurts et al. 2013, Søe et al. 2013, Metso et al. 2014, Buttaro et al. 2015, Holmberg et al. 2015, Lübbeke et al 2016). This probably reflects that PJI is the most important complication of prosthetic surgery.

This issue of Acta Orthopaedica presents 4 new studies on different aspects of PJI. Zhu et al. (2016) compared data on the rate of PJI reported to the New Zealand Joint Registry (NZJR) with the “true” rate of PJI, identified by audit of hospital records (discharge and operation codes). Less than two-third of PJIs were reported to the NZJR. Similar rates of underestimation of PJI in arthroplasty registries have also been reported from the Nordic countries (Witsø 2015).