A study has shown that routine use of antibiotic-loaded bone cement in primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has no measurable impact on periprosthetic joint infection rates.
Published in The Journal of Arthroplasty, the study involved review of a consecutive series of patients undergoing cemented primary TKA at two hospitals from 2015 to 2017. More than 2,500 patients were analyzed.
Of the 2,500 patients, about 1,100 received antibiotic-loaded bone cement during their procedure. Researchers found there was no difference in periprosthetic joint infection rates between patients receiving and not receiving antibiotic cement. Furthermore, patients receiving the antibiotic cement had overall high procedure costs — by about $300.
As Healio reports, one of the study's authors — Dr. Michael Yayac — recently presented on the findings at the 29th annual Musculoskeletal Infection Society Annual Open Scientific Meeting. During the presentation, Healio quotes Dr. Yayac as saying, "Routine use of antibiotic cement is not cost effective in preventing infection in primary TKA and should be avoided with value-based alterative payment models that incentivize to reduce unnecessary costs. However, given that this was performed in a relatively healthy population at orthopedic specialty hospitals, further studies would be needed to determine [whether] certain high-risk patients would benefit from its use and would be considered a cost-effective measure."