Cutibacterium-positive infection cultures after THA, TKA may lead to subtle changes
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Key takeaways:
- Cutibacterium-positive infection cultures after THA and TKA may lead to subtle clinical and laboratory changes.
- Results showed 72% of patients who underwent a second surgery had successful clinical outcomes.
Cutibacterium-positive prosthetic joint infection cultures after total hip and total knee arthroplasty may lead to subtle clinical and laboratory changes, according to a presentation at the Musculoskeletal Infection Society Annual Meeting.
“It would be important to keep Cutibacterium infection in mind, even if patients are still having pain and questionable infection,” Benjamin Levy, MD, said in his presentation. “The inflammatory markers for Cutibacterium-positive cultures in THA and TKA were often elevated above normal values, though often not as much as the more virulent species. Of those patients who did undergo a surgical intervention, many of them were able to have a successful outcome.”
In a retrospective chart review of data for 29 patients with positive Cutibacterium cultures who underwent either THA (n = 21) or TKA (n = 8), Levy and colleagues evaluated whether these patients met Musculoskeletal Infection Society (MSIS) prosthetic joint infection (PJI) criteria, as well as their inflammatory marker levels, synovial fluid characteristics and clinical outcomes after treatment.
In patients with positive Cutibacterium cultures who underwent THA, researchers found 47.6% of these cases met MSIS infection criteria, according to Levy. Similarly, he noted that 47.6% of these cases were polymicrobial.
For patients in the TKA group, Levy said seven patients met MSIS infection criteria.
In addition, he said 72% of patients who underwent a second surgery had successful clinical outcomes at 1-year follow-up based on MSIS outcome measures.
“In summary, keeping Cutibacterium in mind as a pathogen after these surgeries is important to help guide treatment,” Levy said. “Further research is certainly indicated to better understand the prevalence, diagnosis and treatment of these cultures.”
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Levy B, et al. Paper 1108. Presented at: Musculoskeletal Infection Society Annual Meeting; Aug. 4-5, 2023; Salt Lake City (hybrid meeting).
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