Some patients with an infection of their orthopedic implant use lifelong daily antibiotics. Our research, however, suggests that it might be safe to stop after 2 to 3 years. Furthermore, we found that it is probably safe to use a lower dosage of antibiotics than normally used for these infections. We performed this study by retrospectively analyzing electronic patient files from all patients we treated in our hospital with suppressive antibiotics.

The relation between postoperative wound leakage and occurrence of a prosthetic joint infection (PJI) after arthroplasty has not been investigated in a prospective study. We performed a large cohort study in which 1019 patients, after arthroplasty, recorded their wound drainage status in a wound care app during 30 postoperative days. Risk factors for wound drainage were identified. Moderate to heavy wound leakage in the third postoperative week was strongly associated with the occurrence of PJI.