Background: The wearing of male facial hair has been undergoing something of a renaissance for a number of years, with medical colleagues in the surgical disciplines being no exception. Meanwhile, there are a few reports in the literature that beards might have an increased bacterial colonization. This study aims to determine if wearing a beard leads to an increased rate of infection in total hip or knee arthroplasty. Patients and Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 20,394 primary hip and knee replacements that were implanted at a single university hospital. The rate of infections that occurred within one year after surgery and the surgeons performing the surgery were recorded. The surgeons were classified into clean-shaven and beard wearers. The beard wearers were further classified by individual facial hair styles, namely a moustache, chin beard, round beard, or full beard. Results: The overall rate of surgical site infections 365 days after surgery is 0.75%. There was no statistically significant association between surgical site infection and the presence of facial hair (p = 0.774) or specific beard types (p = 0.298). Conclusions: The results presented in this study show no differences in infection rates across different facial hair styles of male surgeons.
Keywords: TJR; beard; peri-prosthetic infection; total hip replacement; total knee replacement.