Recalcitrant Periprosthetic Joint Infection With Iliac Fossa Abscess After Total Hip Arthroplasty

Abstract Background: Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a widely used and successfully performed orthopedic procedure for treating severe hip osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and avascular necrosis. However, periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) after THA is a devastating complication for patients and orthopedic surgeons. Although surgical technology has been advanced and antibiotic-loaded cemented spacers or beads have developed, the treatment failure rate of one- or two-stage exchange arthroplasty for PJI is reported to be high, with >10% rate of incidence. Therefore, determining the possible pathogenesis and increasing the treatment success rate is a clinically important and urgent issue. Methods: A total of 256 patients with PJI who had undergone THA from 2005 to 2015 were included in this retrospective review. Seven patients required combined ilioinguinal and anterlateoal approach for debridement of iliac fossa abscess and infected hip lesion, included five patients with intraoperative pus leakage from the acetabular inner wall and the other two patients who underwent pre-operative pelvic computed tomography (CT) because of repeat PJI treatment failure. All available data from the medical records from all patients were retrospectively analyzed.Results: Of the 256 patients, seven (3.1%) patients was combined iliac fossa abscess in our cohort. For the microbiologic analysis, a total of thirteen pathogens were isolated from seven recurrent PJI patients with iliac fossa abscess, and Staphylococus aureus was the most commomly pathogen (4 out of 7 cases). The serum white blood cell (WBC) count was decreased significantly two weeks after debridement with combined the ilioinguinal and anterolateral approach compared to the day before surgery (11840/μL vs. 7370/μL; p<0.01), and level of C-reactive protein (CRP) was decreased at postoperative one week (107 mg/dL vs. 47.31 mg/dL; p=0.03). Furthermore, no recurrent infection was found in six revision THA patient in a follow up of 7.1 year. Conclusion: This result suggests that pre-operative pelvic CT and cautious identification of uncertain pus leakage from the inner wall of the acetabulum is essential for the diagnosis of recurrent PJI. Radical debridement with combined ilioinguinal and anterlateoal approach may aviod treatment failure in recurrent PJI with iliac fossa abscess.