Infection in total knee arthroplasty: Treatment

Infection at the site of a total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a feared and sometimes catastrophic complication. With improvements in patient selection, surgical technique, and prosthetic design, infection is now the dominant mode of early TKA failure (1, 2). The overall rate of infection following primary TKA is 1-2% (3), and is even higher following revision surgery (4). As the number of total knee arthroplasties performed annually continues to rise (5), so will the demand for timely and effective treatment of prosthetic joint infection. The purpose of this chapter will be to review the state-of- the-art with respect to the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of deep infection following total knee arthroplasty.