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

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

David Jaffe  1 , Timothy Costales  1 , Julio J Jauregui  1 , Scott Koenig  1 , Tristan B Weir  1 , Patrick Greenwell  1 , Matthew Christian  1 , R Frank Henn 3rd  1
Affiliations

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

David Jaffe et al. J Orthop. .

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.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
This map demonstrates the distribution of national responses received. The map is color coded to display the preference for surgical treatment of a native septic knee. Fig. 1 demonstrates how the responses varied by state, and further shows how the majority believed arthroscopy was the best surgical option for the patient in the vignette. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
This figure demonstrates the treatment of choice for a native septic knee in an adult based on subspecialty training.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
This graph demonstrates what orthopaedic surgeons believe to be the gold standard of treatment for septic arthritis of a native adult knee based on subspecialty training. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Demonstration of relatively influence of multiple factors on surgical decision-making for technique of treatment for septic arthritis of a native knee. Influence was defined by the following scale: No Influence = 0, Mild Influence = 1, Moderate Influence = 2, Heavy Influence = 3, Extreme Influence = 4.
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