Hip aspiration: a cost-effective and accurate method of evaluating the potentially infected hip prosthesis

Abstract

Purpose: The accuracy of fluoroscopy-guided hip aspiration in the diagnosis of infection in hip prostheses was evaluated.

Materials and methods: Results from 147 preoperative aspiration cultures were compared with results of operative cultures. The relative costs of aspiration and nuclear medicine studies were also compared.

Results: With the operative culture results as the standard, sensitivity of hip aspiration was 92.8% and specificity was 91.7%. The negative and positive predictive values were 99.2% and 54.2%, respectively. Aspiration arthrography costs approximately 20% as much as complementary technetium sulfur colloid-indium-111 granulocyte scans, the most accurate nuclear medicine study used to evaluate potentially infected hip prostheses.

Conclusion: Hip aspiration is an accurate and cost-effective method of evaluating the potentially infected hip prosthesis.