Case report: Be alert to herpes zoster after total knee arthroplasty

Zhanqi Wei; Xisheng Weng

doi:10.3389/fsurg.2023.1042482

Case report: Be alert to herpes zoster after total knee arthroplasty

Front Surg. 2023 May 5:10:1042482. doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2023.1042482. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zhanqi Wei^{1

2}, Xisheng Weng^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Orthopaedics, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
² School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.

Abstract

An 88-year-old woman started complaining of severe pain at the right knee and above at three weeks after right total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The empirical treatment cannot effectively control the progress of pain. The lesion was eventually diagnosed to be due to herpes zoster (HZ). The finding of HZ was unexpected in this case, because HZ is extremely rare in patients after TKA.

Keywords: herpes zoster (HZ); infection; pain; total knee arthroplasty (TKA); varicella zoster virus (VZV).

Publication types

Case Reports

Grants and funding

Supported by the National Key R&D Program of China No. 2018YFF0301105.