Irrigation and debridement for knee osteoarthritis patients with suspected infection by intra-articular injection before total knee arthroplasty: a retrospective study

BACKGROUND: Patients suffer from knee osteoarthritis (KOA) pain may seek for intra-articular injections before total knee arthroplasty (TKA), which have a possibility of causing the joint sepsis. However, the management and clinical outcomes of these patients following TKA remain uncertain. METHODS: Patients with a history of intra-articular injection, in which a joint sepsis was suspected, were included. The patients received joint irrigation and debridement (I&D) and antibiotic treatment until serum inflammatory indicators returned to normal level before TKA. The information of joint fluid routine and culture, synovium section and culture, and serum inflammatory indicator values were collected. Range of motion, Knee Society Scores (KSS) and Western Ontario McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) were used for functional evaluations. RESULTS: A total of 17 patients with 17 knee joints were included, all with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels (23.5 ± 8.7 mg/L) as well as increased number of white blood cells (WBC) in the aspiration (50.8 ± 15.3) × 10(9)/L, but no positive cultures were found. The culture of synovium detected three positive results: two Staphylococcus epidermidis and one S. aureus. I&D treatment had no obvious effect on the functional outcomes of KOA, but alleviated the joint pain (p < 0.01). Furthermore, we found that I&D pretreatment could increase the operation time with about 10 min longer than the primary TKA (p < 0.01). With respect to TKA outcomes, I&D had a slight influence on the knee flexion (p < 0.01), but no significant difference was identified between the two groups for KSS and WOMAC (all p values > 0.05). In addition, there was no significant difference in complication rates between the two groups in the last follow-up. CONCLUSION: I&D treatment is a valuable procedure for suspected knee infection, which has a higher incidence of detecting microorganisms while does not influence the functional outcomes and complication rates of TKA. However, further larger studies are required to confirm these findings.