Acute metastatic infection of a revision total hip arthroplasty with oral bacteria after noninvasive dental treatment

Abstract

The risk of hematogenous bacterial infection of a total joint prosthesis is currently considered to be greatest in the 2 years after arthroplasty or when the patient is chronically ill or immunocompromised, for dental treatments that are considered invasive, with a higher incidence of bacteremia. We report the case of a healthy man who had undergone revision hip arthroplasty 11 months previously and who developed acute signs of infection of the hip prosthesis with an oral organism 30 hours after supragingival dental cleaning, performed with the specific intention to be noninvasive, without antibiotic prophylaxis.