Abstract
Post-surgical wound infections following total hip or knee arthroplasties can be a potentially catastrophic complication for the patient. Currently, several preventative measures exist to help combat this complication. One such method is skin disinfection with preadmission cutaneous chlorhexidine preparation. Although efficacious in reducing surgical site infections during total joint arthroplasty, orthopaedists should be aware of discrepancies between hip and knee arthroplasty. For example, Kapadia et al. performed a prospective study which evaluated the use of preadmission cutaneous chlorhexidine preparation on the reduction of surgical site infections following total hip arthroplasty; they found that there was a 3-fold higher relative risk of developing infection in patients who did not receive the chlorhexidine preparation as compared to those who did. In a similar study performed for total knee arthroplasty, the same authors founds a 6-fold higher relative risk of developing infection, which equated to double the risk as compared to total hip arthroplasty. In a study by Lewis et al. regarding timing to diagnosis of surgical site infections in post-hip and knee arthroplasties, the authors found a longer median time to diagnosis post-knee arthroplasty as compared to hip arthroplasty (25 vs. 42 days, p= <0.001). These finding suggest that orthopaedists should recognise that “A knee is not a hip” with regards to surgical site infections and should be aware of the discrepancies that exist between the two.
