This retrospective study compared debridement and implant retention failure for three types of acute knee replacement infection and analyzed outcomes for patients in a cohort with low medical risk. No differences in failure rate were seen between types in the overall sample or “optimal” cohort. Staphylococcus aureus was less common in later infection, while Streptococcus was less frequent in earlier infection. In an optimal patient, similar outcomes between types may suggest that medical factors do not alter risk.

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis have a high treatment failure rate when faced with a late acute periprosthetic joint infection. Because of the rarity of the condition, we performed a multicenter case-control study. We identified predictors of treatment failure to ultimately improve the treatment outcome. Exchange of modular components seems important in this patient group, likely due to a higher rate of positive blood cultures compared to control patients.

The desirability of outcome ranking (DOOR) combines joint function, infection cure and mortality into one outcome. Using the DOOR, we describe patient outcomes after prosthetic joint infection (PJI) treatment; moreover, debridement, antibiotics and implant retention (DAIR) is compared with two-stage exchange. Infections were classified as early (≤ 90 d post-arthroplasty) or late (> 90 d post-arthroplasty). For early PJI, DAIR was superior to two-stage exchange, whereas two-stage revision was superior to DAIR for late PJI.

Our goal was to evaluate the results of two-stage revision of hip periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) over a 20-year period. Our arthroplasty unit is the largest in Ireland. We obtained data for a large number of cases (158 hips) with mid-term to long-term follow-up. Our analysis has found an infection-free survival rate of 84.2 % at 10 years, which was comparable with the best available outcomes. Most of the previously published risk factors were not predictive of failure in our study.

Researchers in 2018 suggested guidelines to decide if a single surgery (one-stage exchange) could be used to treat a joint implant infection. We wanted to see how many patients met guidelines and if they had better outcomes. Very few patients with joint implant infections met guidelines for a single surgery. Also, being in good general health with a known cause of infection did not guarantee better results. This supports the need for a bigger study comparing one- and two-step treatments.