Femoral cement-in-cement revision is a well described technique to reduce morbidity and complications in hip revision surgery. Traditional techniques for septic revision of hip arthroplasty necessitate removal of all bone cement from the femur. In our two centres, we have been using a cement-in-cement technique, leaving the distal femoral bone cement in selected patients for septic hip revision surgery, both for single and the first of two-stage revision procedures. A prerequisite for adoption of this technique is that the surgeon considers the cement mantle to be intimately fixed to bone without an intervening membrane between cement and host bone. We aim to report our experience for this technique. We have analyzed patients undergoing this cement-in-cement technique for femoral revision in infection, and present a consecutive series of 89 patients. Follow-up was undertaken at a mean of 56.5 months (24.0 to 134.7) for the surviving cases.Aims
Methods
The removal of all prosthetic material and a
two-stage revision procedure is the established standard management of
an infected total hip replacement (THR). However, the removal of
well-fixed femoral cement is time-consuming and can result in significant
loss of bone stock and femoral shaft perforation or fracture. We
report our results of two-stage revision THR for treating infection,
with retention of the original well-fixed femoral cement mantle
in 15 patients, who were treated between 1989 and 2002. Following
partial excision arthroplasty, patients received local and systemic
antibiotics and underwent reconstruction and re-implantation at
a second-stage procedure, when the infection had resolved. The mean follow-up of these 15 patients was 82 months (60 to
192). Two patients had positive microbiology at the second stage
and were treated with six weeks of appropriate antibiotics; one
of these developed recurrent infection requiring further revision.
Successful eradication of infection was achieved in the remaining
14 patients. We conclude that when two-stage revision is used for the treatment
of peri-prosthetic infection involving a THR, a well-fixed femoral
cement mantle can be safely left
