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.

We retrospectively analyzed 490 patients who underwent aseptic revision total hip replacement (R-THA) and found no difference in culture results between antibiotic prophylaxis (AP) administered before incision or after tissue biopsy. Although not significant, infection was twice as likely when AP was given after incision. Other literature also supports the benefit of pre-incisional AP. We therefore believe AP should be given pre-incision to prevent unnecessarily exposing patients to infections.

Long antibiotic courses, including IV and oral administrations, are utilized in prosthetic joint infection (PJI) treatment. Most researchers focus on a shorter duration of the overall antibiotic course for the treatment of PJI; however, this is the first systematic review and meta-analysis to emphasize the IV component of the antibiotic course. The focus on IV treatment only is due to the burden associated with it and its prolonged utilization within the US without much evidence of practice.

Neisseria meningitidis is a rare cause of prosthetic joint infection (PJI) which we hypothesised could be safely managed with minimal surgical intervention and short-course antibiotics. In contrast to the existing three reported cases, all of which received a minimum of 12 weeks of antibiotics, we present three further cases of late acute haematogenous PJI due to Neisseria meningitidis, demonstrating successful treatment with 6 weeks or less of antimicrobial therapy and implant retention.