Sonication in Orthopedics for the Diagnosis of Implant-Associated Infections

Abstract

Introduction. Implant-associated infections in orthopedics represent a major challenge for diagnosis and treatment. Sonication is an alternative method for the diagnosis in prosthetic infections, with a higher sensitivity compared to the conventional periprosthetic cultures. Our aim was to compare the results of conventional culturing and sonication process in per prosthetic joint infections. Material and method. We followed up in a period of 7 years (2007-2014) patients who underwent to total joint arthroplasty, and fracture fixation with internal fixation in the University Emergency Hospital of Bucharest. Conventional and sonication fluid culturing was performed in order to compare the results of it. In 3 cases the cultures after sonication was negative in 9 cases Methicilin resistant (MR) staphylococcus was isolated. Sonication Results Our study involved 34 patients with an average age of 63.08 ±10.65SD. In 3 cases the cultures after sonication was negative in 9 cases Methicilin resistant (MR) staphylococcus was isolated, in 1 case Serratia Marcescens and another case with Staphylococcus Warmei. Discussion Our study underlines the importance of the etiological diagnosis with the application of sonication Coclusions The sonication technique is simple and can be performed in the most of microbiological laboratories. Sonication has the benefit of the etiological diagnosis either in mono-microbial and poli-microbial implant-associated infections, with a higher sensitivity than standard culturing.