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Media Contact: Denise Smith Rodd drodd@operationwalkglobal.org
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Investigators Search for Infecting Organisms in Joint Infection

 

Dallas, November 3, 2018 — At the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons, Karan Goswami, MD presented the study, “Next Generation Sequencing for the Diagnosis of Periprosthetic Knee Infection: A Multicenter Investigation.” He and co-authors, Majd Tarabichi, MD, Noam Shohat, MD, Carlos A. Higuera, MD, Eric L. Smith, MD, Arthur L. Malkani, MD, Brian T. Palumbo, MD, Michael B. Cross, MD, Craig J. Della Valle, MD and Javad Parvizi, MD set out to determine if next generation sequencing (NGS) could identify the organism(s) responsible for knee infection in patients who underwent revision total knee arthroplasty.

The multicenter study involved 13 institutions where DNA samples taken during revision surgery from 102 patients were sent to a laboratory for NGS, and tissue specimens were sent to the institutions’ laboratories for culture. After testing, 36 cases were considered to be infected, and 66 were considered aseptic.

Comparing results between the NGS testing and culture testing found some concordance and some discordance. Further evaluation of the data led authors to the conclusion that “NGS was able to detect a pathogen in the majority (>90%) of culture-negative cases and demonstrated a high rate of concordance with culture in culture-positive cases” and that the findings “suggest that NGS is a useful adjunct for identifying the causative organism in PJI.”

Abstract: http://meeting.aahks.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/18_paper-35-goswami.pdf

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About the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons:

Established in 1991, the mission of AAHKS is to advance hip and knee patient care through education, advocacy and research. AAHKS has a membership of over 4,000 surgeons and other hip and knee health care professionals.

Contact:
Denise Smith Rodd
drodd@operationwalkglobal.org