Total Knee Arthroplasty: The Efficacy of Calcium Sulfate Beads in One-Stage Aseptic Revision

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Author Info

Iciar M. Dávila Castrodad Joseph O. Ehiorobo Ethan A. Remily James Nace Nequesha S. Mohamed Nicole E. George Ronald Delanois Wayne A. Wilkie

Corresponding Author

Ronald Delanois
Primary Investigator, Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics, Baltimore, MD, USA

A B S T R A C T

Background: The risk of periprosthetic joint infection following revision total knee arthroplasty is high, as is the cost of care. Decreasing periprosthetic joint infection risk may include utilization of calcium sulfate beads. Calcium sulfate beads have been gaining momentum in treating infected joints because of their potential advantages, including antibiotic elution and dissolvability. However, literature documenting their utilization in aseptic revision is sparse. This study compares: 1) infection rates; 2) length of stay; 3) subsequent infection procedures; and 4) final surgical outcome between one-stage aseptic revision total knee arthroplasty patients who received calcium sulfate beads and those who did not. Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review to identify patients who underwent aseptic one-stage revision total knee arthroplasty between January 2013 and December 2017. Outcomes collected included postoperative infection rate, length of stay, subsequent irrigation and debridement, and final surgical outcome, classified as a successful total knee arthroplasty reimplantation, a retained antibiotic spacer, or an above knee amputation. Chi-square analysis was used to analyze all categorical variables, while Student’s t-testing was used for continuous variables. A p-value of 0.5 was set as the threshold for statistical significance. Results: Calcium sulfate bead patients did not differ from non-calcium sulfate bead patients with regard to the number of postoperative infections (p=0.103), lengths of stay (p=0.210), irrigation and debridement procedures (p=0.063) and surgical outcome (p=0.085). Conclusion: Patients who received calcium sulfate beads had analogous surgical outcomes and infection rates to non-calcium sulfate bead patients. The use of calcium sulfate beads in aseptic one-stage revision total knee arthroplasty may not be beneficial in preventing infection and reducing costs.

Article Info

Article Type

Research Article

Publication history

Received: Fri 21, Jun 2019
Accepted: Sat 06, Jul 2019
Published: Sat 20, Jul 2019

Copyright

© 2023 Ronald Delanois. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.JSR.2019.01.05