LISBON, Portugal ― Screening for Staphylococcus aureus, decolonization, and use of teicoplanin for surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis among patients with methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA) lowered the number of prosthetic joint infections in elderly patients undergoing surgery for fracture of the femur.
The findings were presented here as a poster at the 32nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) 2022, which was one of the few awarded the accolade of "top-rated poster."
"We actually found that with our intervention, all prosthetic joint infections decreased, not just the Staphylococcus aureus but those due to MRSA, too," said Natividad Benito, MD, an infectious diseases specialist at Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona, Spain, in an interview with Medscape Medical News. "We're pleased with these results because prosthetic joint infections present such a complicated situation for patients and surgeons. This is also a relatively easy intervention to use, and with time, even the PCR [polymerase chain reaction] technology will become cheaper. Now, in our hospital, prosthetic joint infections are rare."
At the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, around 200 hip hemiarthroplasties are performed per year. Preceding the intervention, the hospital recorded 11 prosthetic joint infections, with up to five infections due to
