Paper #II-2

MEDICAL COMORBIDITIES IN PATIENTS WITH INFECTED PRIMARY HIP AND KNEE REPLACEMENTS

Kafai Lai, B.Sc, MD

Saskatoon, SK

Co-Authors

Eric R Bohm B.Eng MD MSc(CH&E) FRCSC

Colin Burnell MD FRCSC

David Hedden MD FRCSC

Deep infection of total hip (THA) and knee replacements (TKA) causes significant patient morbidity and requires significant health care resources to treat. In order to identify preventable or modifiable medical conditions associated with prosthetic joint infection, a retrospective case-control study was undertaken. The study examined 51 patients who had developed deep infection after primary THA or TKA. To reduce bias, a control group of arthroplasty patients was selected using one to one matching based on age, gender, and procedure. Co-morbidities in each group were recorded, and classified by system - cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, metabolic, haematological, neurological and diabetes. The effect of the number of medical co-morbidities on risk of infection was also examined. Analysis revealed that although patients with joint infections were more likely to suffer from individual co-morbidities by system than the matched control group, the adjusted odds ratios did not reach statistical significance. However, the effect of multiple medical co-morbidities is significant; each additional co-morbidity increases the odds of developing a joint infection by 14%. Our results demonstrate that patients with multiple medical comorbidities have an increased odds of developing deep infection after primary hip and knee arthroplasty.