Current surgical practice for septic arthritis of the knee in the United States

David Jaffe; Timothy Costales; Julio J Jauregui; Scott Koenig; Tristan B Weir; Patrick Greenwell; Matthew Christian; R Frank Henn 3rd

doi:10.1016/j.jor.2021.04.005

Current surgical practice for septic arthritis of the knee in the United States

J Orthop. 2021 Apr 22:25:88-92. doi: 10.1016/j.jor.2021.04.005. eCollection 2021 May-Jun.

Authors

David Jaffe¹, Timothy Costales¹, Julio J Jauregui¹, Scott Koenig¹, Tristan B Weir¹, Patrick Greenwell¹, Matthew Christian¹, R Frank Henn 3rd¹

Affiliation

¹ University of Maryland School of Medicine, Department of Orthopaedics, 110 S. Paca St. 6th Floor Suite 300, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA.

Abstract

For septic arthritis of the knee, we attempted to determine: the preferred surgical technique in the United-States (US), the believed "gold-standard" treatment among others. This was performed by an electronic-survey distributed to all academic orthopaedic faculty throughout the US. The preferred method was arthroscopy (69.8%). Arthroscopy is believed to be the gold-standard in 27.0%, arthrotomy in 29.4%, while 43.5% believe no gold-standard exists. In conclusion the majority of surgeons prefer arthroscopy when managing a native, septic knee in an adult patient. However, there is no national consensus on a gold-standard treatment or the role of synovectomy.

Keywords: Arthroscopy; Arthrotomy; Septic arthritis; Septic knee; Surgical technique.