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The impact of sonication cultures when the diagnosis of prosthetic joint infection is inconclusive.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In the absence of a gold standard criterion for diagnosing prosthetic joint infections (PJI), sonication of the removed implant may provide superior microbiological identification to synovial fluid and peri-implant tissue cultures. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the role of sonication culture compared to tissue cultures for diagnosing PJI, using different consensus and international guidelines for PJI definition.

Methods

Data of 146 patients undergoing removal of hip or knee arthroplasties between 2010 and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. The International Consensus Meeting (ICM-2018), Musculoskeletal Infection Society (MSIS), Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the European Bone and Joint Infection Society (EBJIS), and a modified clinical criterion, were used to compare the performance of microbiological tests. McNemar´s test and proportion comparison were employed to calculate p-value.

Results

Overall, 56% (82/146) were diagnosed with PJI using the clinical criteria. Out of these cases, 57% (47/82) tested positive on tissue culture and 93% (76/82) on sonication culture. Applying this clinical criterion, the sensitivity of sonication fluid and tissue cultures was 92.7% (95% CI: 87.1%- 98.3%) and 57.3% (95% CI: 46.6%-68.0%) (p<0.001), respectively. When both methods were combined for diagnosis (sonication and tissue cultures) sensitivity reached 96.3% (95% CI: 91.5%-100%). Sonication culture and the combination of sonication with tissue cultures, showed higher sensitivity rates than tissue cultures alone for all diagnostic criteria (ICM-18, MSIS, IDSA and EBJIS) applied. Conversely, tissue culture provided greater specificity than sonication culture for all the criteria assessed, except for the EBJIS criteria, in which sonication and tissue cultures specificity was 100% and 95.3% (95% CI: 87.8-100%), respectively (p = 0.024).

Conclusions

In a context where diagnostic criteria available have shortcomings and tissue cultures remain the gold standard, sonication cultures can aid PJI diagnosis, especially when diagnostic criteria are inconclusive due to some important missing data (joint puncture, histology).

SUBMITTER: Ribeiro TC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8277053 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Sonication is a valuable tool in the diagnosis of periprosthetic joint infections (PJI). However, conditions and definition criteria for PJI vary among studies. The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic performance (i.e., specificity, sensitivity) of sonicate fluid culture (SFC) against periprosthetic tissue culture (PTC), when using European Bone and Joint Infection Society (EBJIS) criteria. METHODS:From March 2017 to April 2018, 257 implants were submitted for sonication. PJI was defined according to the EBJIS criteria as well as according to the International Consensus Meeting criteria of 2018 (ICM 2018). Only cases with at least one corresponding tissue sample were included. Samples were cultured using traditional microbiological plating techniques. Sensitivity and specificity were determined using two-by-two contingency tables. McNemar's test was used to compare proportions among paired samples. Subgroup analysis was performed dividing the cohort according to the site of PJI, previous antibiotic treatment, and time of manifestation. Prevalence of pathogens was determined for all patients as well as for specific subgroups. RESULTS:Among the 257 cases, 145 and 112 were defined as PJI and aseptic failure, respectively. When using the EBJIS criteria, the sensitivity of SFC and PTC was 69.0 and 62.8%, respectively (p =?.04). Meanwhile, the specificity was 90.2 and 92.9%, respectively (p =?.65). When adopting ICM 2018 criteria, the sensitivity of SFC and PTC was 87.5 and 84.4% (p =?.63) respectively, while the specificity was 85.1 and 92.5% (p =?.05), respectively. The most commonly identified pathogens were coagulase-negative staphylococci (26% overall), while 31% of PJI were culture-negative and 9% polymicrobial. CONCLUSIONS:SFC exhibited significantly greater sensitivity versus PTC when using the EBJIS criteria. Nevertheless, the diagnosis of PJI remains a difficult challenge and different diagnostic tools are necessary to optimize the outcome.