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EFORT Congress opens in Prague

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PRAGUE — More than 7,000 orthopedic surgeons from around world have gathered here for the 16th European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology Congress to consult on ways to optimize prevention and therapy for infections after joint replacement surgery.

“Infections pose a problem that we must take very seriously and that pertains to every orthopedist or trauma surgeon,” Stephen R. Cannon, MD, president of the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (EFORT), said.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found infections occurred in 0.7% of the knee replacement surgeries and in 1% of the hip replacement procedures in Europe on average. Infections were among the most frequent causes of rejected prostheses. According to the ECDC report, among implanted hip prostheses, infections resulted in death in one of every 200 cases. Postoperative infections are among the most frequent nosocomial infections overall, the data showed.

“The rising number of joint replacement procedures can be expected to cause a rise in the incidence of infections. In Great Britain, for instance, infection rates for hip and knee replacement surgeries vary from 0.2% to 4.0% depending on myriad factors. If we could achieve the lowest infection rates throughout the system we would save €250 million to €370 million a year. These data alone show the urgency of this issue,” Cannon said.

Presentations here will also cover the increasing problem of postoperative infections being caused by bacteria exhibiting multiple resistances to commonly used antibiotics.

“Resistance to antibiotics has become a central problem in the treatment of all categories of bone and joint infections,” Cannon said.

Surveillance programs, such as that of the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, show an increase in resistances to gram-negative rod-shaped bacteria has been observed along with the greater spread of gram-positive nosocomial infection agents, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

“We must change our antimicrobial strategies in light of such trends. That is why one of the issues we are discussing at the EFORT Congress is the current data picture on which new combinations of antibiotics we should be using in infection prevention, but also in therapy, to counter common resistances in an effective manner,” he said.

Reference:

Cannon SR. Presented at: EFORT Congress; May 27-29, 2015; Prague.

Disclosure: Cannon reports no relevant financial disclosures.