Antigranulocyte scintigraphy with the use of monoclonal antibodies or antibody fragments (leukoscan) is a promising diagnostic tool that has been used widely during the recent years for the establishment of prosthesis infection after total hip or knee arthroplasty.

In the present study we report the Ioannina University Hospital experience in the diagnostic efficacy of leukoscan for the diagnosis of prosthesis infection in patients with total hip or knee arthroplasty.

We considered all patients with suspected total hip or knee arthroplasty infection that had undergone a leukoscan examination for the diagnosis of this infection in our department during the year 2004. All patients underwent a 3-phase bone scan and a subsequent leukoscan. For the whole group of patients the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy were calculated by comparison of the results of three-phase bone scan or leukoscan with the results obtained from cultures of synovial fluid obtained from articular puncture or cultures of intraoperative sampling from those patients that had undergone a revision surgery.

A total of 19 patients with total joint arthroplasty (12 THA and 7 TKA) and suspected prosthesis infection were included in the study. The mean age of patients was 67 years. Twelve patients had verification of prosthesis infection in cultures. The overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy for the three-phase bone scan were 54%, 83%, 88%, 45% and 63% respectively. On the contrary, the overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy for leukoscan were 75%, 86%, 90%, 66% and 79%, respectively.

Antigranulocyte scintigraphy with the use of monoclonal antibody fragment sulesomab (leukoscan) had good but not perfect diagnostic performance for the diagnosis of prosthesis infection in patients with total hip or knee arthroplasty.