Paper of the week: Perioperative Antibiotic Prophylaxis in Total Joint Arthroplasty: A Single Dose Is as Effective as Multiple Doses. Tan TL, Shohat N, Rondon AJ, Foltz C, Goswami K, Ryan SP, Seyler TM, Parvizi J. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2019 Mar 6;101(5):429-437. doi: 10.2106/JBJS.18.00336.

Summary by Dr. Sreeram Penna

This study is a retrospective study comparing the incidence of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in primary joint arthroplasty who had a single dose of prophylactic antibiotic versus multiple doses at the time of surgery. A total of 20,682 patients were included in the study. Of these 4523 had a single dose and 16159 had multiple doses. All patients who had an infection within 1 year were identified and confirmed with MSIS criteria. In addition, researchers calculated and recorded the patient’s preoperative infection risk score.

The results showed that overall rates of PJI were 0.60% (27/4523) in patients receiving a single dose and 0.88% (142/16159) in patients receiving multiple prophylactic antibiotic doses. Researchers also noted that both patient groups were significantly different in various demographics (age, sex, BMI, comorbidities, ASA score, length of stay). Researchers then performed multivariate analysis after controlling for potential confounders and found no significant difference between the PJI rate between both groups. They have also used propensity score matching with preoperative risk score and found no increase in PJI rate in patients with a single dose of prophylactic antibiotic at the primary procedure.

Although this study has limitations of being retrospective study and statistically significant differences between two groups, it provides the necessary evidence to support the use of single-dose prophylactic antibiotic during primary joint arthroplasty.