Prevalence of Septic Arthritis After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Among Professional Athletes

Abstract

Participation in professional sports and having a combined lateral tenodesis are risk factors for the development of infection after ACL reconstruction. We hypothesize that professional athletes may be part of a specific group of patients at higher risk of infection after ACL reconstruction.

Does Combined Intra- and Extraarticular ACL Reconstruction Improve Function and Stability? A Meta-analysis

“…The postoperative rehabilitation program may have negatively influenced the results of Anderson et al [3] and Goertzen and Schulitz [15], which were based on immobilization with a brace and early restricted ROM. Despite the additional lateral knee incision required for the extraarticular procedure and some authors suggesting a higher infection rate with the combined procedure [39], this complication was similar in both treatment groups. Ultimately, reoperation rates for recurrent meniscal injuries were not different in the two intervention groups.…”

Efficacy of arthroscopic treatment for resolving infection in septic arthritis of native joints

“…Post-arthroscopy septic arthritis runs a more indolent course and is often due to slowly growing bacteria (e.g., coagulasenegative staphylococci or anaerobes), two facts that explain the longer time to treatment [19,20]. Nevertheless, the management strategy is the same, with first-line arthroscopy for an evaluation of the joint, lavage, and synovectomy.…”

Managing septic arthritis after knee ligament reconstruction

“…They ultimately observed different shortfalls in the surgical equipment decontamination and sterilisation process that ultimately led to the development of an infection-preventing pathway for patients and providers. Sonnery-Cottet et al [7] also presented a consecutive series with 1957 ACLRs with an infection rate of 0.61 %. Those authors observed that this rate increased to 5.7 % in a subgroup of professional athletes that included 88 patients.…”

“…aureus and CNS (S. epidermidis and other coagulasenegative species) are the most common bacteria found in most series [2,3,5,7,10,11,[14][15][16]. Additionally, different methicillin-resistant S. aureus or anaerobium microorganisms have also been cultured as the origin of such infections.…”

“…Recently, Brophy et al [21] reported that a patient with diabetes who receives a hamstring auto-or allograft has an increased risk of infection following ACLR. Additional surgical procedures during ACLR are also considered a risk factor [7,11,19]. This might not only be due to the need to add an open surgical approach but also due to increased surgical time.…”