Ultrasound-Guided Periprosthetic Biopsy in Failed Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Novel Approach to Test Infection in Patients With Dry Joints

To diagnose periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) preoperatively, ultrasound-guided joint aspiration (US-JA) may not be performed when effusion is minimal or absent. We aimed to report and investigate the diagnostic performance of ultrasound-guided periprosthetic biopsy (US-PB) of synovial tissue to obtain joint samples in patients without fluid around the implants.

One-hundred nine patients (55 men; mean age: 68 ± 13 years) with failed total hip arthroplasty (THA) who underwent revision surgery performed preoperative US-JA or US-PB to rule out PJI.

Sixty-nine of 109 patients had joint effusion and underwent US-JA, while the remaining 40 with dry joint required US-PB. Thirty-five of 109 patients (32.1%) had PJI, while 74/109 (67.9%) had aseptic THA failure. No immediate complications were observed in both groups. Technical success of US-PB was 100%, as the procedure was carried on as planned in all cases. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of US-JA were 52.2%, 97.8%, 92.3%, 80.3%, and 82.6%, while for US-PB, they were 41.7%, 100%, 100%, 80%, and 82.5%, respectively, with no significant difference (P = .779). Using the final diagnosis as reference standard, we observed a moderate agreement with both US-JA (k = 0.56) and US-PB (k = 0.50).

We present a novel US-guided technique to biopsy periprosthetic synovial tissue of failed THA to rule out PJI. We found similar diagnostic performance as compared with traditional US-JA. This supports future larger studies on this procedure that might be applied in patients without joint effusion.